Curiosity prompted Captain Nicholson to examine the corpses. Not one bore the trace of a wound. In addition to the four by the doorway sixteen lay partly hidden by the overturned tables and chairs. Without a mark to show how they had been killed, all the men were dead. Some had been struck down in the act of writing. One man still held a pencil firmly clenched in his hand. Others were eating when death overtook them suddenly and painlessly.