"When he comes I want to see him. It is idle speculating about the cause of death in the absence of a doctor. Death in this case appears to have been due to haemorrhage. Apparently the murderer aimed at the heart and missed it, and the shot went through the lungs. The shot was fired at very close range too--look how the wrapper is burnt! Any sign of the bullet, Caldew?" "I found none." "Well, we shall have to wait for the doctor to clear up these points." His trained eyes swept round the bedroom, taking stock of every article in it. He next carefully examined the door, and the lock on it. "The door was open when the others came upstairs, you said, Caldew?" "Yes--about half open." "That accounts for the scream and the shot being heard so plainly downstairs. It also suggests that the murderer fled very hurriedly, leaving the door open behind him." "It seems to me more likely that he escaped by the window, even if he did not enter that way. Miss Heredith, who was the last inmate of the household to see Mrs. Heredith alive, thinks that the window was closed when she was in the room before dinner." Merrington walked over to the window and examined it, testing the lock and looking at the sill. "Does Miss Heredith say that the window was locked, or merely closed, when she was in the room?" he asked. "She cannot say definitely. She thinks it was closed because the air was heavy, and she knew that Mrs. Heredith disliked having her bedroom window open." Merrington shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "A woman's fancies are not much to build a theory upon," he said. "Have you any other reason for thinking that the murderer may have escaped by this window?" "Yes. After the shot was fired the guests rushed upstairs immediately, and the murderer would have run into them if he had attempted to escape downstairs." "Is there no other means of escape from the wing except by the staircase?" "There is the back staircase I told you of, at the end of the corridor. That staircase is never used. The door is kept locked, and the key hangs in a room downstairs. It was the door at the bottom of this staircase which was found unlocked by the butler yesterday evening." "I'll have a look at it, and then we'll go downstairs. I want to see this bedroom window from outside." They left the bedroom and proceeded to the end of the corridor, where Caldew pointed out the door at the top of the staircase. Merrington opened it, and went down the stairs. He reappeared after the lapse of a few minutes with dusty hands and cobwebs on his clothes.