“It is blood,” he said briefly; “there’s another patch near the door. Where does this door lead? Catch that girl, she’s fainting!”
Timothy was just in time to slip his arm round Mary’s waist before she collapsed. By this time the household was aroused, and a woman servant was on the spot to take charge of Mary. When Timothy had rejoined the policeman, that officer had discovered where the door led.
“You go down a stairway into the garden,” he said. “It looks as if two shots were fired here. Look, there’s the mark of both of them on the wall.”
“Do you suggest that two people have been killed?”
The policeman nodded.
“One was shot in the middle of the room, and one was probably shot on the way to the door. What do you make of this?” and he held up a bag, discoloured and weather-worn, with a handle to which was fastened a long length of rusty wire.
“It is empty,” said the officer, examining the contents of the little grip which, up till an hour before, had held John Maxell’s most jealously guarded secrets.
“I’ll use this ’phone,” said the officer. “You’d better stay by, Mr. Anderson. We shall want your evidence—it will be important. It isn’t often we have a man watching outside a house where a murder is committed—probably two.”
The sun had risen before the preliminary interrogation and the search of the house and grounds had been concluded. Blewitt the detective, who had taken charge of the case, came into the dining-room, where a worried servant was serving coffee for the investigators, and dropped down on to a chair.