strange company.

The two women told their story clearly enough. They had been aroused
from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been followed
a minute later by a second one. They slept in adjoining rooms, and Mrs.
King had rushed in to Saunders. Together they had descended the stairs.
The door of the study was open, and a candle was burning upon the table.
Their master lay upon his face in the centre of the room. He was quite
dead. Near the window his wife was crouching, her head leaning against
the wall. She was horribly wounded, and the side of her face was red
with blood. She breathed heavily, but was incapable of saying anything.
The passage, as well as the room, was full of smoke and the smell of
powder. The window was certainly shut and fastened upon the inside. Both
women were positive upon the point. They had at once sent for the
doctor and for the constable. Then, with the aid of the groom and the
stable-boy, they had conveyed their injured mistress to her room. Both
she and her husband had occupied the bed. She was clad in her dress--he
in his dressing-gown, over his night-clothes. Nothing had been moved in
the study. So far as they knew, there had never been any quarrel between
husband and wife. They had always looked upon them as a very united
couple.

These were the main points of the servants' evidence. In answer to
Inspector Martin, they were clear that every door was fastened upon the
inside, and that no one could have escaped from the house. In answer to
Holmes, they both remembered that they were conscious of the smell of
powder from the moment that they ran out of their rooms upon the top
floor. "I commend that fact very carefully to your attention," said
Holmes to his professional colleague. "And now I think that we are in a
position to undertake a thorough examination of the room."

The study proved to be a small chamber, lined on three sides with books,
and with a writing-table facing an ordinary window, which looked out
upon the garden. Our first attention was given to the body of the
unfortunate squire, whose huge frame lay stretched across the room. His
disordered dress showed that he had been hastily aroused from sleep.
The bullet had been fired at him from the front, and had remained in
his body, after penetrating the heart. His death had certainly been
instantaneous and painless. There was no powder-marking either upon his
dressing-gown or on his hands. According to the cou