“Has it ever struck you as peculiar,” he said, “that the bullet was not introduced in evidence?” “No,” said the governor, “not very.” The private secretary paused. When he had done he laughed. The governor was seriously silent for many minutes, and then he said: “Leonard, I want you to tell me your theory of this whole business.” Gilman sat up. “Well,” he said, “had it never occurred to you that it would have been significant to determine where that bullet lodged as showing its direction? It bored a hole clear through Brokoski, but at which end had it entered?” “I presume the medical testimony settled that,” replied the governor. He seemed to find a species of relief in this thought. “Yes,” Gilman said, “but the medical testimony was bad. It consisted of the conclusions of a young doctor who examined Brokoski’s body after it had grown cold. He accepted Whalen’s guilt as an established fact. He assumed that the bullet entered at the breast. There was then nothing to do but to trace its course through the tissues of the body. If his views were correct, the ball would have lodged somewhere behind Brokoski.” “But it flew out into the alley,” argued the governor, “and shattered the window in doing so.” “True,” assented Gilman, “and yet you assume all the while that Whalen fired the shot. Of course the circumstances attending the tragedy, the occasion, the quarrel, Whalen’s flight, and the finding of his gun, lent strong color to that presumption.” “But the shattered window,” the governor interpolated. “Yes, and the shattered window. Now,” he continued, “a surgeon, experienced in gunshot wounds, might have been able to distinguish in such a wound as Brokoski’s, the point of the missile’s entrance from the point of exit. Of course it is not certain. The youth the police called did not think such an inquiry important, whereas it was vital. A pistol fired point-blank at a man would blacken his breast with powder. The velocity of the ball, fired at such range might have been sufficient to knock the man over backward, instead of allowing him to fall upon his face as he did. Then, there’s the window. It was shattered, the police said, by the ball. Even the glass in the upper sash was broken. The frame on the outside was blackened by powder, the stains even now being visible. Now, a bullet flying the distance it must have traversed between Whalen’s hand and the window, would, in all probability, simply have perforated the glass with a round, clean hole. But the weapon having been fired in close proximity, the concussion shattered the whole window.” After a silence Gilman resumed: “Now then, assume that the bullet entered Brokoski’s back and emerged from his breast. The conclusion deduced from the circumstances I have suggested, is impregnable when that bullet is located in a position in front of Brokoski.”