something like an echo of itself, following close upon the first
ping. Didn't you notice that, Warren?"

"I remember something of the kind," her husband allowed.

"He shot twice and quickly," interposed the policeman,
sententiously. "We shall find a spent bullet back of that
mirror."

But when, upon the arrival of the coroner, an investigation was
made of the mirror and the wall behind, no bullet was found
either there or any where else in the room, save in the dead
man's breast. Nor had more than one been shot from his pistol, as
five full chambers testified. The case which seemed so simple had
its mysteries, but the assertion made by Mrs. Saunders no longer
carried weight, nor was the evidence offered by the broken mirror
considered as indubitably establishing the fact that a second
shot had been fired in the room.

Yet it was equally evident that the charge which had entered the
dead speculator's breast had not been delivered at the close
range of the pistol found clutched in his hand. There were no
powder-marks to be discerned on his pajama-jacket, or on the
flesh beneath. Thus anomaly confronted anomaly, leaving open but
one other theory: that the bullet found in Mr. Hammond's breast
came from the window and the one he shot went out of it. But this
would necessitate his having shot his pistol from a point far
removed from where he was found; and his wound was such as made
it difficult to believe that he would stagger far, if at all,
after its infliction.