We should have got to work long
before. Too much time has been wasted already." Then he turned to me and
said casually, "Drop in and see me later on, Jim. I'll be working till
about ten."

I told him that I'd be along very shortly, and then I went hunting for a
book to read. I found one at length, and I got so interested in it that
I did not notice time passing. I was brought back to reality by a quick
step in the passage, and I turned my head to view the newcomer. It was
only Moira on her way to the study. She went by me with her head in the
air, as if I did not exist. I recall taking out my watch and noting that
it was just a quarter-past-nine, and high time I went in and saw Bryce.
However, as Moira had got in ahead of me, and her business was probably
of a private nature, I decided to wait until I heard her come out again.

I turned back to my book, but had scarcely found my place when I caught
the tinkle of breaking glass on woodwork, and practically at the same
instant there was a sharp "pop," as if someone had drawn a cork from a
bottle of some gaseous liquid. On the heels of that had come the single
whip-like crack of a revolver. I swung to my feet in an instant, and the
book dropped unheeded to the floor. During the last few days I had got
out of the habit of carrying my revolver, but for all that I made
straight for the study, and without the slightest ceremony turned the
handle. The door was not locked; it opened at my touch. I doubt if it
was even latched.

If my long years of training in the hard school of experience have
brought me nothing else, they at least taught me to keep my head in just
such an emergency as this present one. It was well for me that I had my
nerves under complete control, for the sight that faced me was one that
I could not have pictured in even my wildest flights of fancy. Bryce was
slumped forward in his chair, his big head sunk on his chest. All the
color had fled from his face, leaving it ashen pale. The kind eyes that
used to sparkle so were glazed now in death, and squinted up at me
through the tangled mat of his eyebrows. The whiteness of his immaculate
shirt-front was defiled for the first and last time by the big blood
stain that showed how his life had ebbed away. But it was Moira most of
all who caught and held my attention. She was standing just a little to
the left of Bryce, her deep eyes wide with horror and a smoking revolver
still held in her white clenched hand. She