murder actually did
occur. Up to half-past ten the servants were moving about the house; so
it was certainly not before that time. At a quarter to eleven they
had all gone to their rooms with the exception of Ames, who was in
the pantry. I have been trying some experiments after you left us this
afternoon, and I find that no noise which MacDonald can make in the
study can penetrate to me in the pantry when the doors are all shut.

"It is otherwise, however, from the housekeeper's room. It is not so far
down the corridor, and from it I could vaguely hear a voice when it was
very loudly raised. The sound from a shotgun is to some extent muffled
when the discharge is at very close range, as it undoubtedly was in this
instance. It would not be very loud, and yet in the silence of the night
it should have easily penetrated to Mrs. Allen's room. She is, as she
has told us, somewhat deaf; but none the less she mentioned in her
evidence that she did hear something like a door slamming half an hour
before the alarm was given. Half an hour before the alarm was given
would be a quarter to eleven. I have no doubt that what she heard was
the report of the gun, and that this was the real instant of the murder.

"If this is so, we have now to determine what Barker and Mrs. Douglas,
presuming that they are not the actual murderers, could have been doing
from quarter to eleven, when the sound of the shot brought them down,
until quarter past eleven, when they rang the bell and summoned the
servants. What were they doing, and why did they not instantly give
the alarm? That is the question which faces us, and when it has been
answered we shall surely have gone some way to solve our problem."

"I am convinced myself," said I, "that there is an understanding between
those two people. She must be a heartless creature to sit laughing at
some jest within a few hours of her husband's murder."

"Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what
occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are
aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are
few wives, having any regard for their husbands, who would let any man's
spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead body. Should I
ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling
which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my
corpse was lying within a few yards of her. It was badly stage-ma