Bundle drank obediently and a tinge of colour came into her pallid face. The doctor nodded approvingly. "That's right. Now I want you to sit quietly here. I'll go out and attend to things. After I've made sure there's nothing to be done for the poor fellow, I'll come back and we'll talk about it." He was away some time. Bundle watched the clock on the mantelpiece. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes--would he never come? Then the door opened and Dr. Cassell reappeared. He looked different--Bundle noticed that at once--grimmer and at the same time more alert. There was something else in his manner that she did not quite understand, a suggestion of repressed excitement. "Now then, young lady," he said, "let's have this out. You ran over this man, you say. Tell me just how the accident happened?" Bundle explained to the best of her ability. The doctor followed her narrative with keen attention. "Just so; the car didn't pass over his body?" "No. In fact, I thought I'd missed him altogether." "He was reeling, you say?" "Yes, I thought he was drunk." "And he came from the hedge?" "There was a gate just there, I think. He must have come through the gate." The doctor nodded, then he leaned back in his chair and removed his pince-nez. "I've no doubt at all," he said, "that you're a very reckless driver, and that you'll probably run over some poor fellow and do for him one of these days--but you haven't done it this time." "But--" "The car never touched him. _This man was shot._" CHAPTER VI SEVEN DIALS AGAIN Bundle stared at him. And very slowly the world, which for the last three quarters of an hour had been upside down, shifted till it stood once more the right way up. It was quite two minutes before Bundle spoke, but when she did it was no longer the panic-stricken girl but the real Bundle, cool, efficient, and logical. "How could he be shot?" she said. "I don't know how he could," said the doctor dryly. "But he was. He's got a rifle bullet in him all right. He bled internally, that's why you didn't notice anything." Bundle nodded. "The question is," the doctor continued, "Who shot him? You saw nobody about?" Bundle shook her head. "It's odd," said the doctor. "If it was an accident, you'd expect the fellow who did it would come running to the rescue--unless just possibly he didn't know what he'd done." "There was no one about," said Bundle. "On the road, that is." "It seems to me," said the doctor, "that the poor lad must have been running--the bullet got him just as he passed through the gate and he came reeling on to the road in consequence. You didn't hear a shot?" Bundle shook her head. "But I probably shouldn't anyway," she said, "with the noise of the car." "Just so. He didn't say anything before he died?" "He muttered a few words." "Nothing to throw light on the tragedy?"