ON THE HILL-TOP
Morning dawned on the good ship Jerry Boyne not so dismasted and rudderless as you might have thought. I'd carried that 1920 diary to my room and, before I slept, read the whole of it. This was the last word we had from the dead man; here if anywhere would be found support for the suggestions of a weakening mind and suicide.
Nothing of that sort here; on the contrary, Thomas Gilbert was very much his clear-headed, unpleasant, tyrannical self to the last stroke of the pen. But I came on something to build up a case against Eddie Hughes, the chauffeur.
I didn't get much sleep. As soon as I heard Chung moving around, I went down, had him give me a cup of coffee, then stationed him on the back porch, and walked to the study, shut myself in, and discharged my heavy police revolver into a corner of the fireplace; then with the front door open, fired again.
"How many shots?" I called to Chung.
"One time shoot."
Worth's head poked from his upstairs window as he shouted,
"What's the excitement down there?"
"Trying my gun. How many times did I fire?"
"Once, you crazy Indian!" and the question of sound-proof walls was settled. Nobody heard the shot that killed Gilbert twenty feet away from the study if the door was closed. Mrs. Thornhill's ravings, as described in Skeet's letter to Barbara, were merely delirium.