Bates, the butler, followed Tish and did not forget to color his account of the happenings with a none-too-modest tribute to his own shrewd deductions that it had been murder and not suicide. He was proud of that little achievement. He told how he had been fast asleep when the ringing of the doorbell had awakened him, and he had got up to admit Gilmore, who had been out at the studio and had forgotten his keys; he described how he had been in the butler's pantry; that he had just finished making Gilmore a toddy, which the latter was drinking, when both of them had heard the scream, closely followed by the shot. Joan Sheridan suppressed a shiver, but no one noticed that. "After that, Bates?" urged Doctor Bushnell. "Mr. Gilmore and I hurried upstairs. When we was about halfway up we heard a door slam shut--Haskins when he scooted back up to the attic, I guess. The door to the younger Mrs. Gilmore's room was open, and the light was burning. I went in first, and there she was--all covered with blood, the gun on the floor beside the couch. It looked like suicide, but I knew it wasn't, because she wouldn't have screamed before shooting herself. She might have screamed after she did it, but the shot was fired after she screamed. More than that; the door was open, and, like I said, people don't shoot themselves with the door open." "A very good deduction, Bates," nodded the doctor. "Yes, sir; I rather thought so myself," agreed Bates. Other questions and answers followed, and the entire ground was covered swiftly, but thoroughly. The jurors were then asked if they wished to interrogate the witness. None of them did, and Bates was excused. "Miss Sheridan, merely as a matter of formality, will you please take the witness chair?" murmured Doctor Bushnell, and Joan, her face becoming a shade more pale with the ordeal, got slowly to her feet and walked to the front of the room. Kirklan Gilmore's body tensed, and his hand clenched, but he did not lift his eyes. "I want you to understand," the doctor told her gently, after taking her oath as a witness, "that this is a mere formality. You will please tell us, in your own words, just what you know about the tragedy." Joan Sheridan was plainly nervous; her fingers, resting in her lap, were twisting about each other, and for a moment she did not answer. "There is nothing--nothing that I can tell," she answered in a strained, muffled voice. "As I understand--in fact, from what you told me--you did not hear the fatal shot." Joan's voice became a little clearer, as she answered: "No, I did not hear the fatal shot." "I might explain to the jury," added the doctor, "that Miss Sheridan's room is in another part of the house."