To the right of the couch a large Japanese screen had been so placed as to hide some object spread out on the floor. To the left, watching every movement of the still, recumbent figure, stood a powerful-looking woman in nursing dress. Wingfield's gaze, after wandering round the large, bare room, returned and again clung to the sinister immobile form which he longed to be told was that of Hinton, and as he gazed he forced himself to feel a fierce gladness and relief in the knowledge that Dering was dead,--that in his pocket lay the telegram which proved it. At last, to gain courage and to stifle a horrible doubt, he compelled himself to meet those at once indifferent and appealing eyes, which seemed to stare fixedly beyond the group of men by the door; and suddenly the lawyer became aware that just behind him hurried whispered words were being uttered. "This gentleman is Mr. Dering's solicitor; perhaps he will be able to throw some light on the whole affair," and he felt himself being plucked by the sleeve and gently pulled back into the hall. "It is--isn't it?--poor Hinton?" and he looked imploringly from one man to the other. "Hinton?" said the doctor sharply. "He's there, sure enough--but you didn't see him, for we put him under a sheet, behind that screen. Your friend shot him dead first, and then cut his own throat, but he didn't set about that in quite the right way, so he's alive still, as you can see." Wingfield drew a long breath of something like relief. The torturing suspense of the last few moments was at an end. "And where is Mrs. Dering?" he spoke in a quiet, mechanical voice; and Johnstone felt angered by his callousness. "We've just sent her back into the next house," he answered curtly, "and made her take the Hinton children with her. For--well, it often is so in such cases, you know--the presence of his wife seems positively to distress Mr. Dering; besides, the nurse and I can do, and have done, all that is possible." "And have you no clue to what has happened? Has Dering been able to give no explanation of this--this--horrible business?" Johnstone shook his head. "Of course he can't speak. He will never speak again. He wrote a few words to his wife, but they amounted to nothing save regret that he had bungled the last half of the affair." "And what do you yourself think?" Wingfield spoke calmly and authoritatively. He had suddenly become aware, during the last few moments, that he was talking to a medical man. "I haven't had time to think much about it;" the tone was rough and sore. "Mr. Dering seems to have come into a large sum of money, and such things have been known to upset men's brains before now." "Still, he might write something of consequence, now that this gentleman has come," interposed the inspector.