"After I'd convinced the coroner of our disinterested motives," continued Godfrey, "we went down to the cellar together, and, with the help of a couple of policemen, dug up the body. One of the policemen happened to be Clemley, who'd been stationed at the Lawrence place, and he identified the man at once as the one who had asked him the way to the Kingdon house. We got him out--and a good load he was--stripped back his clothes, and found that he'd been shot in the breast. The wound was a very small one, and there had been little external bleeding. There were no burns upon the clothing, so the shot was fired from a distance of at least five feet. The police surgeon ran in his probe, and found that the bullet had passed directly through the heart, so that death was instantaneous. From the expression of the face, I should say that the victim had no suspicion of his danger--you remember that leer of self-satisfaction. The course of the bullet was downward, which would seem to indicate that he was sitting in a chair at the time, while his murderer was standing up. He had been dead more than twenty-four hours. The clay of the cellar was nearly as hard as rock, which accounts for the fact that Harriet Kingdon was so long getting him buried." "And it was she who fired the shot," I said, with conviction. "Marcia Lawrence had nothing to do with it." "Do you believe Lucy Kingdon knew anything about it?" he asked, looking at me keenly. "No--I'm sure she didn't." "Then you apparently believe that one woman of only ordinary strength could handle a body which taxed two strong men to lift! I tell you, Lester, Harriet Kingdon unaided couldn't have taken that body to the cellar and laid it in that grave. If Lucy Kingdon didn't aid her, who did?" "I don't know," I answered. "But it wasn't who you think." "Well, I hope it wasn't--but I don't see any other way out." "You don't know all the facts, yet," I pointed out. "And I'm not so sure that Harriet Kingdon couldn't have handled the body alone. She didn't have to lift it, but just drag it down the stairs and tumble it into the hole. She could have done that, and removed the traces afterwards." "But the body wasn't tumbled into the hole--it was laid in. Did you notice its position--the feet were toward the inner wall. Do you suppose she'd have dragged him by his legs?" "She might have done anything, in her excitement," I persisted doggedly. "You can't reason about what a woman would do under such circumstances." "Perhaps not," Godfrey admitted; "but Haynes was struck with the idea, too, that Harriet Kingdon must have had an accomplice. He believes, of course, that the accomplice was her sister. I let him keep on believing so--she can clear herself easily enough when the time comes; but just at present I want him to think he knows the whole story." "Yes," I agreed, "that's the best--keep the bomb from bursting as long as you can."