. |_________|_____C_________D____
| ***
F Musician's Gallery
|____ ______________ ________________ ______
|
| Dining Room Level With Lobby

It follows then that the only possible means of approach to this room
lies through the archway H., or from the elevator door. But the elevator
made no stop at the mezzanine on or near the time of the attack upon
Miss Challoner; nor did any one leave the table or pass by it in either
direction till after the alarm given by her fall.

But a bullet calls for no approach. A man at X. might raise and fire his
pistol without attracting any attention to himself. The music, which all
acknowledge was at its full climax at this moment, would drown the noise
of the explosion, and the staircase, out of view of all but the victim,
afford the same means of immediate escape, which it must have given
of secret and unseen approach. The coat-room into which it descended
communicated with the lobby very near the main entrance, and if Mr.
Brotherson were the man, his sudden appearance there would thus be
accounted for.

To be sure, this gentleman had not been noticed in the coatroom by the
man then in charge, but if the latter had been engaged at that instant,
as he often was, in hanging up or taking down a coat from the rack, a
person might easily pass by him and disappear into the lobby without
attracting his attention. So many people passed that way from the
dining-room beyond, and so many of these were tall, fine-looking and
well-dressed.

It began to look bad for this man, if indeed he were the one we had seen
under the street-lamp; and, as George and I reviewed the situation, we
felt our position to be serious enough for us severally to set down our
impressions of this man before we lost our first vivid idea. I do not
know what George wrote, for he sealed his words up as soon as he had
finished writing, but this is what I put on paper while my memory was
still fresh and my excitement unabated:

He had the look of a man of powerful intellect and determined will,
who shudders while he triumphs; who outwardly washes his hands of
a deed over which he inwardly gloats. This was when he first rose
from the snow. Afterwards he had a moment of fear; plain, human,
everyday fear. But this was evanescent. Before he had turned to
go, he showed the self-possession of one who feels himself so
secure, or is