ed, turning toward his
wife.

"No," she answered, but not with the readiness he had evidently
expected. "I heard only one, but that was not quite usual in its tone.
I'm used to guns," she explained, turning to the officer. "My father
was an army man, and he taught me very early to load and fire a pistol.
There was a prolonged sound to this shot; something like an echo of
itself, following close upon the first ping. Didn't you notice that,
Warren?"

"I remember something of the kind," her husband allowed.

"He shot twice and quickly," interposed the policeman, sententiously.
"We shall find a spent bullet back of that mirror."

But when, upon the arrival of the coroner, an investigation was made of
the mirror and the wall behind, no bullet was found either there or any
where else in the room, save in the dead man's breast. Nor had more than
one been shot from his pistol, as five full chambers testified. The case
which seemed so simple had its mysteries, but the assertion made by Mrs.
Saunders no longer carried weight, nor was the evidence offered by the
broken mirror considered as indubitably establishing the fact that a
second shot had been fired in the room.

Yet it was equally evident that the charge which had entered the dead
speculator's breast had not been delivered at the close range of the
pistol found clutched in his hand. There were no powder-marks to be
discerned on his pajama-jacket, or on the flesh beneath. Thus anomaly
confronted anomaly, leaving open but one other theory: that the bullet
found in Mr. Hammond's breast came from the window and the one he shot
went out of it. But this would necessitate his having shot his pistol
from a point far removed from where he was found; and his wound was such
as made it difficult to believe that he would stagger far, if at all,
after its infliction.

Yet, because the coroner was both conscientious and alert, he caused a
most rigorous search to be made of the ground overlooked by the above
mentioned window; a search in which the police joined, but which was
without any result save that of rousing the attention of people in the
neighbourhood and leading to a story being circulated of a man seen some
time the night before crossing the fields in a great hurry. But as no
further particulars were forthcoming, and not even a description of the
man to be had, no emphasis would have been laid upon this story had it
not transpired that the moment a report of it had come t