"You're trying to tell me—" blurted out Devreaux, aghast.
"I'm telling you what happened, the only thing that could have happened. Mrs. Stark may have thought that Mudgett had betrayed her people to the police. At any rate she mistrusted him. He was a weakling, and he was our prisoner. She could be certain that we could force him to turn state's evidence against her husband. But she saw her chance to stop that danger. Handcuffed as she was, she could use a revolver.
"There can be no other explanation," Dexter went on grimly. "She leaned over the edge of the bunk and shot Mudgett, and a moment later turned the weapon on herself and pulled the trigger."
Devreaux gazed at the younger man in somber fascination. "You mean to say it was—"
"Murder and suicide!" said the corporal.
"But," protested the superintendent, "the revolver—you told me you found it on the opposite side of the room, by the door."
"With two chambers empty." Dexter nodded. "The dead prisoner was lying across the upper bunk, with the arms hanging out over the side. There must have been a sharp reflex after death, and the revolver was flung across the room from the unclasping fingers."
"But the front door was barred on the inside," objected Devreaux.
The corporal shrugged his shoulders. "Yes. That was one of the things that started me off on a false trail. I was too quick in jumping at conclusions—taking it for granted that a third person had barred the door."
"Your prisoners were tied to the bunks. Neither of them could have—"