car left the grounds, and turned on to the main road, leading citywards.
They were still skirting the Coolidge estate, although the house behind
was concealed by shrubbery. The road descending into a ravine spanned by
a concrete bridge, and a rather dense growth of trees shut out the
surrounding landscape. Nothing moving was in sight. Suddenly, just as
they cleared the bridge, and began to mount the opposite grade, there
came a sharp report, sounding so close at hand the chauffeur clamped on
his brake, and glanced anxiously over the side of the car.

"Blow-out, wasn't it, sir?"

"No," said West shortly, staring himself out into the thicket of trees at
their left. "It was a shot fired over there; a revolver I should say.
Wait a second, Sanders, until I see what has happened."

It was largely curiosity which led him to leave the car. The very
conviction that it was a revolver which had been discharged brought a
desire to learn the cause of the shot. The sound of either a rifle or a
shot-gun in that lonely spot would have been instantly dismissed as
natural enough, but a pistol was different. That was no place for such a
weapon. It somehow had a grimly sinister sound. Led forward by a dim
path, he plunged down the sharp incline of the hill, and pressed his way
through the thick fringe of trees beyond. Behind these ran a wire fence,
guarding a stretch of meadow, the high, uncut grass waving in the wind.
Nothing was in sight except this ripening field of clover sweeping upward
to the summit of an encircling ridge. The silence was profound; the
loneliness absolute.

It was this fact which startled West from curiosity into suspicion.
Surely there had been a shot fired--a revolver shot--almost on the very