the doorway to deliver his shot, pausing, let us say, about here." And
Mr. Gryce planted his feet firmly upon a certain spot in the carpet,
about a foot from the threshold before mentioned.

"But--" I hastened to interpose.

"There is no room for 'but,'" he cried. "We have studied the
situation." And without deigning to dilate upon the subject, he turned
immediately about and, stepping swiftly before me, led the way into the
passage named. "Wine closet, clothes closet, washing apparatus,
towel-rack," he explained, waving his hand from side to side as we
hurried through, finishing with "Mr. Leavenworth's private apartment,"
as that room of comfortable aspect opened upon us.

Mr. Leavenworth's private apartment! It was here then that _it_
ought to be, the horrible, blood-curdling _it_ that yesterday was
a living, breathing man. Advancing to the bed that was hung with heavy
curtains, I raised my hand to put them back, when Mr. Gryce, drawing
them from my clasp, disclosed lying upon the pillow a cold, calm face
looking so natural I involuntarily started.

"His death was too sudden to distort the features," he remarked,
turning the head to one side in a way to make visible a ghastly wound
in the back of the cranium. "Such a hole as that sends a man out of
the world without much notice. The surgeon will convince you it could
never have been inflicted by himself. It is a case of deliberate
murder."

Horrified, I drew hastily back, when my glance fell upon a door
situated directly opposite me in the side of the wall towards the hall.