crossing the floor, he paused in front of the
threshold of a narrow passageway, opening into a room beyond. "As the
murdered man was discovered sitting in this chair, and consequently with
his back towards the passageway, the assassin must have advanced through
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. It
appeared to be the only outlet from the room, with the exception of the
passage through which we had entered, and I could not help wondering
if it was through this door the assassin had entered on his roundabout
course to the library. But Mr. Gryce, seemingly observant of my glance,
though his own was fixed upon the chandelier, made haste to remark, as
if in reply to the inquiry in my face:

"Found locked on the inside; may have come that way and may not; we
don't pretend to say."

Observing now that the bed was undisturbed in its arrangement, I
remarked, "He had not retired, then?"

"No; the tragedy must be ten hours old. Time