"Without going into the unpleasant details, it would have been practically impossible for her to have shot herself in such a manner. And there was her scream. You didn't hear it?" Joan's face was white. "N-no," she stammered. "I--I did not hear Helen scream." "Scream she did--a terrible scream of terror, according to Bates. Added to that, the door of her room was found open, and--it was Bates who suggested it--people do not scream when they are about to kill themselves." The girl's lips moved soundlessly as if she were trying to speak but could not find the words. Her eyes refused to meet his, and the physician had a baffled, apprehensive feeling that she knew something she was very unwilling to tell. Her attitude was one of terrified concealment. Was she trying to protect some one? Or was she trying to protect herself? What did Joan know? "But," she said, after this tense pause, "you--you don't think that Mr. Sarbella----" Doctor Bushnell lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know what to think," he replied. "From what I have gathered there is something under the surface and----" Before he could complete the sentence Ham Griggs' voice bawled from down the hall: "Hey, doc! Where are you?" The constable was not disposed to bide his time downstairs; officially important, he had brushed the butler aside and mounted the stairs in search of the physician. Joan drew a breath of relief and Doctor Bushnell frowned. "That's Constable Griggs," he said; "he's looking for me. Isn't there something you can tell me, Joan, that will throw some light on the tragedy?" "Nothing," she answered faintly, "absolutely nothing. Only--I feel very positive that Mr. Sarbella did not do it." "Doc! Where the thunder are you, anyhow?" Again Ham Griggs' raucous bellow, edged with impatience, boomed through the upper hall. The physician turned toward the door, having no choice but to respond. Joan's attitude troubled him. Why did she express such a positive conviction of Sarbella's innocence, the most obvious suspect? He found Griggs around the turn in the hall, stern and grim. "This is a fine howdy-do," Griggs rumbled, "keepin' an officer of the law coolin' his heels, when there's murder been done, an' there's a murderer to be put under arrest." His hand moved in his pocket, jingling a pair of handcuffs. "Who done it, doc?" Doctor Bushnell sighed wearily, realizing that the constable was going to be a difficult person to deal with. There is nothing more trying than official bigotry. "That's the job in front of us--to ferret that out," he answered. "Reckon Gilmore----" "No, Gilmore was downstairs talking to the butler when the shot was fired," broke in the doctor. Briefly he related the facts, as he had found them, but he confined himself strictly to facts, and indulged in no theories or suspicions; he was afraid to trust Ham Griggs with theories. The constable listened, rocking his heavy body on his heels and frowning sternly.