"Well, I had reached my room, a sitting-room adjoining my bedroom, when I heard a gunshot. Apparently it came from the Quarry Wood, and I was surprised, because there is no shooting at this season. A little later--some few seconds--I heard Sylvia scream. I did not rush out instantly to discover the cause. Young ladies sometimes scream at wasps and caterpillars. Then I heard Tomlinson say, 'Fetch Mr. Hilton at once,' and I ran into Harris, who blurted out, 'Mr. Fenley has been shot, sir.' "After that, I scarcely know what I said or how I acted. I remember running downstairs, and finding my father lying outside the front door, with Sylvia supporting his head and Tomlinson and Brodie trying to lift him. I think--in fact, I am sure now from what Dr. Stern tells me--that my father was dead before I reached him. We all thought at first that he had yielded to some awfully sudden form of paralysis, but some one--Tomlinson, I believe--noticed a hole through the right side of his coat and waistcoat. Then Sylvia--oh, perhaps that is matterless----" "Every incident, however slight, is of importance in a case of this sort," Winter encouraged him. "Well, she said--what was it, exactly? Do you remember, Sylvia?" "Certainly," said the girl, unhesitatingly. "I said that I thought I recognized the sound of Bob's .450. Why shouldn't I say it? Poor Bob didn't shoot his father." Her voice, though singularly musical, had a tearful ring which became almost hysterical in the vehemence of the question and its disclaimer. Fenley moved uneasily, and raised his right hand to his eyes, while the left grasped the back of a chair. "Bob is my brother Robert, who is away from home at this moment," he said, and his tone deprecated the mere allusion to the rifle owned by the absentee. "I only mentioned Miss Manning's words to show how completely at a loss we all were to account for my father's wound. I helped Tomlinson and Brodie to carry him to the settee in the hall. Then we--Tomlinson, that is--opened his waistcoat and shirt. Tomlinson cut the shirt with a scissors, and we saw the wound. Dr. Stern says there are indications that an expanding bullet was used, so the injuries must have been something appalling.... Sylvia, don't you think----" "I'll not faint, or make a scene, if that is what you are afraid of, Hilton," said the girl bravely. "That is all, then, or nearly all," went on Fenley, in the same dreary, monotonous voice. "I telephoned to Dr. Stern, and to Scotland Yard, deeming it better to communicate with you than with the local police. But it seems that Bates, our head keeper hurrying to investigate the cause of the shot, met some artist coming away from the other side of the wood. The Roxton police constable too, met and spoke with the same man, who told both Bates and the policeman that he heard the shot fired. The policeman, Farrow, refused to arrest the artist, and is now searching the wood with a number of our men----"