just after. It indicated just after the hour.”
“So you merely calculate that the shot was fired at seven.”
“Just so. sir,” said he. deflated.
“And with Ebenezer Tepper’s help, how long would you say it took you to break through the door, using the log as a battering ram?”
“A verv short time, sir.”
“And where is the log you used?”
“Just here, on the floor. We threw it aside as we rushed into the room.”
“And the corpus is exactly as you found it?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“Very good. Potter. That will be all.”
“Sir?”
“We have concluded,” said Sir John. “Thank you. Be gone from here.”
“I thought …” He hesitated. “Yes, sir. As you wish, sir.”
With a look of embarrassment at Sir John and then at Mr. Bailey and myself, he slipped past us and walked swiftly down the hall.
“I shall no doubt have questions for you later,” Sir John called after him.
The butler merely half-turned and nodded as he continued on his way.
“All right, Mr. Bailey, let’s inside and be on with it. Jeremy, you may wait, if you choose, or enter. You’ll no doubt see worse sights if you remain in London.” He then stepped through the door and into the room.
Mr. Bailey followed him inside. “Watch the log, sir. It’s just ahead.”
Sir John touched it with his walking stick and nodded. “As he said.”
“Very harsh you were on that Potter, sir.”
“Oh, I suppose so, but the man had obviously been listening at the door earlier and had decided to give precise witness to what his mistress merely reckoned. He had no better idea than she what time the event occurred, timepiece or no. Put a bit of a scare into him because I didn’t want him about, neither with us nor just outside the door.”
“He’ll not come back.”
“No. Well, come along, Mr. Bailey. Describe the room for me.”
And the two of them left the doorway and my sight as I held back, still standing in the hall. I was strangely filled with trepidation. As I look back on my state of mind at the time, I believe it was my father’s recent death that restrained me. That, and perhaps also the look on the butler’s face when he glanced into the depths of the room. In any case, I soon mastered my unease, squared my shoulders, and marched into the library.
In all, we three must have been there on that visit to the room for nearly half an hour. Sir John, early on, took a chair put for him by Mr. Bailey in the exact center of the place and began ordering us about and throwing out questions as to the dimensions of the room. (It was large: nearly a rod square.) Sir John wished to know if it were a proper library. Were there bookshelves? Of what dimensions? Were they filled with books? A few or many? Was there a fireplace? Of what size? What about the room’s furnishings? What were they and where were they placed?
He demanded exactitude and detail from us of the same sort he would have asked of any witness: or more perhaps. Deploring Mr. Bailey’s tendency to generalize, he chided him on a pair of occasions, and asked him to reckon in hands and fingers if he was not sure of feet and inches. I, too, was put to work, climbing about the room to examine the windows. All of them, I found, were shut and locked.
There was, of course, a fourth member to our party. He was seated quietly behind the desk, his head thrown back, a quantity of his blood spilled out over his chin and throat and splattered down upon his shirt and waistcoat. I had managed not to look directly upon him as I ran about, doing Sir John’s bidding. But there came a time at last when all that could be noted about the room had been noted, and there was no place to put our attention but upon the dead man at the desk.
Reader, I make no joke to tell you that he was the deadest dead man that ever I set eyes on. The position of his head had before disguised from me the nature of his wound. But as I approached timorously behind Mr. Bailev and viewed the disfigured
“So you merely calculate that the shot was fired at seven.”
“Just so. sir,” said he. deflated.
“And with Ebenezer Tepper’s help, how long would you say it took you to break through the door, using the log as a battering ram?”
“A verv short time, sir.”
“And where is the log you used?”
“Just here, on the floor. We threw it aside as we rushed into the room.”
“And the corpus is exactly as you found it?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“Very good. Potter. That will be all.”
“Sir?”
“We have concluded,” said Sir John. “Thank you. Be gone from here.”
“I thought …” He hesitated. “Yes, sir. As you wish, sir.”
With a look of embarrassment at Sir John and then at Mr. Bailey and myself, he slipped past us and walked swiftly down the hall.
“I shall no doubt have questions for you later,” Sir John called after him.
The butler merely half-turned and nodded as he continued on his way.
“All right, Mr. Bailey, let’s inside and be on with it. Jeremy, you may wait, if you choose, or enter. You’ll no doubt see worse sights if you remain in London.” He then stepped through the door and into the room.
Mr. Bailey followed him inside. “Watch the log, sir. It’s just ahead.”
Sir John touched it with his walking stick and nodded. “As he said.”
“Very harsh you were on that Potter, sir.”
“Oh, I suppose so, but the man had obviously been listening at the door earlier and had decided to give precise witness to what his mistress merely reckoned. He had no better idea than she what time the event occurred, timepiece or no. Put a bit of a scare into him because I didn’t want him about, neither with us nor just outside the door.”
“He’ll not come back.”
“No. Well, come along, Mr. Bailey. Describe the room for me.”
And the two of them left the doorway and my sight as I held back, still standing in the hall. I was strangely filled with trepidation. As I look back on my state of mind at the time, I believe it was my father’s recent death that restrained me. That, and perhaps also the look on the butler’s face when he glanced into the depths of the room. In any case, I soon mastered my unease, squared my shoulders, and marched into the library.
In all, we three must have been there on that visit to the room for nearly half an hour. Sir John, early on, took a chair put for him by Mr. Bailey in the exact center of the place and began ordering us about and throwing out questions as to the dimensions of the room. (It was large: nearly a rod square.) Sir John wished to know if it were a proper library. Were there bookshelves? Of what dimensions? Were they filled with books? A few or many? Was there a fireplace? Of what size? What about the room’s furnishings? What were they and where were they placed?
He demanded exactitude and detail from us of the same sort he would have asked of any witness: or more perhaps. Deploring Mr. Bailey’s tendency to generalize, he chided him on a pair of occasions, and asked him to reckon in hands and fingers if he was not sure of feet and inches. I, too, was put to work, climbing about the room to examine the windows. All of them, I found, were shut and locked.
There was, of course, a fourth member to our party. He was seated quietly behind the desk, his head thrown back, a quantity of his blood spilled out over his chin and throat and splattered down upon his shirt and waistcoat. I had managed not to look directly upon him as I ran about, doing Sir John’s bidding. But there came a time at last when all that could be noted about the room had been noted, and there was no place to put our attention but upon the dead man at the desk.
Reader, I make no joke to tell you that he was the deadest dead man that ever I set eyes on. The position of his head had before disguised from me the nature of his wound. But as I approached timorously behind Mr. Bailev and viewed the disfigured
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