"Ah--who? That is the question, my friend," returned Cleek quietly, stooping over the bowed white head with its thatch of snowy hair, and tracing the path of the bullet through it in his mind's eye. "H'm! Went through here and came out-- Gad! here's the puncture! Right here! So that somewhere in this room that bullet has lodged itself, and when that is found we shall have our finger upon the pulse of this dreadful tragedy more surely than we know.... Heigho! It's two-thirty, and in this semi-darkness little to be done until the morning sends us its kindly rays. So we must leave things as they are for the present, and later go over the whole thing with clear heads and rested minds.... Sergeant, I put you in charge. A man outside of the window there, please, and another one in this room, and still another outside the door, and if any one tries to get in or out, blow your whistle and I'll be with you in a jiffy.... Come, Mr. Duggan. You're looking terribly white and fagged. Let's have a whisky-and-soda--if you'd be so good as to extend your hospitality so far--and then I'll make myself a shake-down in the next room, if you've no objection. I've given orders for no one to be allowed to leave the house until morning and until parole is given to do so, so you need have no fear of one of the murderers escaping." "I-- I---- What's that you say?" stammered out Ross, swinging round and looking at Cleek with drawn brows and flashing eyes. "You've given orders in _my_ house! I say, you know, this is a bit thick; and--and who the dickens do you think would have done the thing in this place, may I ask? You're rather overstepping the bounds of common hospitality, Mr. Deland, in your role of private detective. And I must ask you to leave the ordering of things to _me_." "And that, I am afraid, is exactly what I can't do, my friend," replied Cleek serenely, with a crooked smile. "Simply because, according to your somewhat one-eyed and one-sided English law, every one is a suspect until he is proved innocent. You, your sister, your stepmother, even your fiancee--who, I suppose, is spending the night here with her cousin Miss Dowd, under the present circumstances as my orders were issued a little earlier in the evening--every member of this household comes under the unwilling stigma of a possible perpetrator of this crime." "Damn it!-- I say--how dare you----"