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Page 10
Contrary to my expectations Gwen did not faint. For a long time,
--it may not have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed,
under the peculiar circumstances, at least an hour,--she remained
perfectly impassive. She neither changed colour nor exhibited any
other sign of emotion. She stood gazing quietly, tenderly, at her
father's body as if he were asleep and she were watching for some
indication of his awakening. Then a puzzled expression came over
her countenance. There was no trace of sorrow in it, only the look
of perplexity. I decided to break the gruesome silence, but the
thought of how my own voice would sound in that awe-inspired
stillness frightened me. Gwen herself was the first to speak. She
looked up with the same impassive countenance, from which now the
perplexed look had fled, and said simply:
"Gentlemen, what is to be done?" Her voice was firm and sane,--that
it was pitched lower than usual and had a suggestion of intensity in
it, was perfectly natural. I thought she did not realise her loss
and said: "He has gone past recall." "Yes," she replied, "I know
that, but should we not send for an officer?" "An officer!" I
exclaimed. "Is it possible you entertain a doubt that your father's
death resulted from natural causes?" She looked at me a moment
fixedly, and then said deliberately: "My father was murdered!" I
was so surprised and pained that, for a moment, I could not reply,
and no one else sought to break the silence.
Maitland, as if Gwen's last remark had given rise to a sudden
determination, glided to the body. He examined the throat, raised
the right hand and looked at the fingers: then he stepped back a
little and wrote something in his note-book. This done, he tried
the folding doors and found them locked on the inside; then the two
windows on the south side of the room, which he also found fastened.
He opened the hall door slightly and the hinges creaked noisily, of
all of which he made a note. Then taking a rule from his pocket he
went to the east window, and measured the opening, and then the
distance between this window and the chair in which the old gentleman
had sat, recording his results as before. His next act astonished
me not a little and had the effect of recalling me to my senses.
With his penknife he cut a circle in the carpet around each leg of
the chair on which the body rested. He continued his examinations
with quiet thoroughness, but I ceased now to follow him closely,
since I had begun to feel the necessity of convincing Gwen of her
error, and was casting about for the best way to do so.
"My dear Miss Darrow," I said at length; "you attach too much
importance to the last words of your father, who, it is clear, was
not in his right mind. You must know that he has, for some months,
had periods of temporary aberration, and that all his delusions
have been of a sanguinary nature. Try to think calmly," I said,
perceiving from her expression that I had not shaken her conviction
in the least. "Your father said he had been stabbed. You must see
that such a thing is physically impossible. Had all the doors and
windows been open, no object so large as a man could possibly have
entered or left the room without our observing him; but the windows
were closed and fastened, with the exception of the east window,
which, as you may see for yourself, is open some six inches or so,
in which position it is secured by the spring fastening. The folding
doors are locked on the inside and the only possible means of
entrance, therefore, would have been by the hall door. Directly in
front of that, between it and your father, sat Mr. Maitland and
myself. You see by my chair that I was less than two feet from the
door. It is inconceivable that, in that half-light, anyone could
have used that entrance and escaped observation. Do you not see
how untenable your idea is? Had your father been stabbed he would
have bled, but I am as certain as though I had made a thorough
examination that there is not so much as a scratch anywhere upon his
body." Gwen heard me through in silence and then said wearily, in
a voice which had now neither intensity nor elasticity, "I understand
fully the apparent absurdity of my position, yet I know my father
was murdered. The wound which caused his death has escaped your
notice, but--"
"My dear Miss Darrow," I interrupted, "there is no wound, you may
be sure of that!" For the first time since Darrow's death Maitland
spoke. "If you will look at the throat a little more closely, you
will see what may be a wound," he said, and went on quietly with his
examinations. He was right; there was a minute abrasion visible.
The girl's quick observation had detected what had escaped me,
convinced as I was that there was nothing to be found by a scrutiny
however close.
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