“Impossible, sir,” and Lockwood’s eyes met the Examiner’s with a gaze fully as calm and insistent as his own.
“Very well, then, how came he by his death?”
“I am not the Examiner,” the Secretary said, and he folded his arms and leaned against the corner of the great mantelpiece; “but since you ask me, I will repeat that there was no way of ingress into this room last night, and that necessarily, the case is a suicide.”
“Just so; and, granting that, will you suggest what may have become of the weapon that was used?”
“What was the weapon?” Lockwood asked, not so disturbed by the question as the Examiner had expected him to be.
“That is what puzzles me,” returned Doctor Marsh. “As you can clearly see the wound was inflicted with a sharp instrument. The man was stabbed just below his right ear. The jugular vein was pierced, and he bled to death. A plexus of nerves was pierced also, and this fact doubtless rendered the victim unconscious at once—I mean as soon as the stab wound was made, though he may have been alive for a few minutes thereafter.”
Gordon Lockwood gazed imperturbably at the speaker. He had always prided himself on his unshakable calm, and now he exhibited its full possibilities. It annoyed Doctor Marsh, who was accustomed to having his statements accepted without question. He took a sudden dislike to this calm young man, who presumed to differ from his deductions.
“I must say,” observed the mild-mannered Doctor Greenfield, “I knew Doctor Waring very well, and he was surely the last person I would expect to kill himself. Especially at the present time—when he was looking forward to high honors in the College and also expected to marry a charming lady.”
“That isn’t the point,” exclaimed Doctor Marsh, impatiently. “The point is, if he killed himself, where is the weapon?”
“I admit it isn’t in view—and I admit that seems strange,” Lockwood agreed, “but it may yet be discovered, while a way of getting into a locked room cannot be found.”