"
Lecoq followed the physician's explanations, and tried to make them
agree with the vague hypotheses that were revolving in his own brain.
But who could these individuals be? Would they, in death, guard the
secret of their identity, as the other victim had done?
The first subject examined by the physicians was over fifty years of
age. His hair was very thin and quite gray and his face was closely
shaven, excepting a thick tuft of hair on his rather prominent chin.
He was very poorly clad, wearing a soiled woolen blouse and a pair of
dilapidated trousers hanging in rags over his boots, which were very
much trodden down at the heels. The old doctor declared that this man
must have been instantly killed by a bullet. The size of the circular
wound, the absence of blood around its edge, and the blackened and
burnt state of the flesh demonstrated this fact with almost mathematical
precision.
The great difference that exists in wounds made by firearms, according
to the distance from which the death-dealing missile comes, was seen
when the physicians began to examine the last of the murdered men. The
ball that had caused the latter's death had scarcely crossed a yard of
space before reaching him, and his wound was not nearly so hideous in
aspect as the other's. This individual, who was at least fifteen years
younger than his companion, was short and remarkably ugly; his face,
which was quite beardless, being pitted all over by the smallpox.
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