As we walked down one of the main corridors we noticed ahead of us a seemingly very nervous and excited gentleman engaged apparently in a heated conversation with another.
"Monsieur De Guerre," whispered Thompson as we approached.
The two seemed to be just on the point of parting, as we neared them, and, I think, our approach hastened them. I could not hear what one of them said, but I heard De Guerre almost hiss, as he turned on his heel, "Well, sir, you were the last one seen with her alive."
A moment later the purser introduced us to De Guerre. There was something about him which I can hardly express on paper, a sort of hypnotic fascination. I felt instinctively that such a man would wield a powerful influence over some women. Was it in his eyes, or was it merely his ardent foreign grace?
"You _must_ find out the truth," he cried eagerly. "Already they are saying that it was suicide. But I cannot believe it. It cannot be. No,--she was murdered!"
Kennedy ventured no opinion, but now, more than ever, hastened to signify to the purser that he wanted to look over the ground as quickly as possible before the ship docked.
Rawaruska, we found, had occupied Room 186, on the port side of one of the lower decks. Kennedy seemed to be keenly interested, as we approached the room in which the body still lay, awaiting arrival at the pier a few hours later.
The stateroom, apparently, ran to the very skin of the vessel and the ports opened directly on the water, not upon an outside deck, as with the rooms above it. It was an outside room at the end of a sort of cross alleyway, and it was impossible that anyone could have reached it except through the corridors.
Attached to it was a little bath and directly across from the bath, on the other side, was another small room which was occupied by her maid, Cecilie, a French girl.
In the main bedroom was a double bed, a couch, a wardrobe, and a small, thin-legged writing or dressing table.
On the white bed lay the now cold and marble figure of the once vivacious little dancer who had enchanted thousands in life--petite, brunette, voluptuous. Rawaruska was beautiful, even in death.
Her finely chiseled features, lacking that heaviness which often characterizes European women, were, however, terribly drawn and her perfect complexion on which she had prided herself was now all mottled and bluish.