Then I gave Worth room to wield his tools on the barred door, while I ran quickly back to the house, into the kitchen, and plumped down in the chair where I had sat before. The light showed on the fog, brightened and dimmed as the mist drifted past. There was no possibility of a mistake: some one had been in the study, had turned on the table lamp, had projected his shadow against the patched panel of the door, and had somehow left the room, one door bolted, the only other exit barred and nailed.
I went back and rejoined Worth who was standing where a brownish stain on the rug marked a spot a little nearer the corner of the table than it was to the outer door. A curious place for a suicide to fall. Behind the table was the library chair in which Thomas Gilbert worked when at his desk; beside it a small cabinet with a humidor on its top and the open door below revealing several decanters and bottles, whisky and wine glasses, a tray; between the desk and the fireplace were two other chairs, large and comfortable; but in front of the table—between it and the door—was barren floor.
It is a fact that most men who shoot themselves do so while sitting; some lying in a bed; few standing. The psychology of this I must leave to others, but experience has taught me to question the suicide of one who has seemingly placed the muzzle of a revolver against him while on his feet. Thomas Gilbert had stood; had chosen to take his life as he was walking from door to desk, or from desk to door.
"Worth," I said. "There was somebody in here just now."
"Couldn't have been, Jerry," he answered absently; then added, his eyes on that stain, "I never could calculate what my father would do. But when I talked to him last night, right here in this room, he didn't seem to me a man ready to take his own life."
"You quarreled?"
"We always quarreled, whenever we met."
"But this quarrel was more bitter than usual?"
"The last quarrel would seem the bitterest, wouldn't it, Jerry?" he asked. Then, after a moment, "Poor Jim Edwards!"
I caught my tongue to hold back the question. Worth went on,