“Wait a second,” said Thaxton. “That may be Quimby. Miss Gregg said she phoned him just after she notified you. He—”
The chief of police bustled into the hallway, and, at Vail’s summons, he came lumbering importantly upstairs. Together he and Dr. Lawton entered the deathly still room, Thaxton following.
“We left him as—as he was,” explained Vail. “Clive says the law demands that.”
Neither of the others paid any heed to him. Both were leaning over the bed. Thaxton stood awkwardly behind them, feeling an alien in his own room. Presently Dr. Lawton spoke almost indignantly.
“I wondered why he should be lying as if he were asleep; with a wound like that,” said he. “Except for the look on his face there’s no sign of disturbance. I see now.”
As he spoke he picked from the floor beside the bed a heavy metal water carafe which belonged on the bedside stand. Its surface was dented far more deeply than so short a tumble warranted.
“Stabbed him,” said the doctor. “Then, as he cried out, stunned him. See, Chief?”
The chief nodded. Then he turned from the bed and swept the room with his beetle-browed gaze. His eyes focused on the nearest window. It stood open, as did all the room’s other windows, on that breathless night.
But its short muslin curtain was thrust aside so far as to be torn slightly from its rod. On the white sill was the distinct mark of a scrape in the paint and a blob of dried mud as from the instep of a boot.
“Got in and out through the window,” decreed Quimby. “In a hurry going out.”