“I did.”
“And were you then able to come to some definite conclusion?”
“I was. In the right side of the head I found a small wound, and, after probing for some time, I found a bullet imbedded in the cerebellum.”
CHAPTER XV.
To say that you could have heard a pin drop in the crowded court at Stroan, when the doctor announced that he had found a bullet in the brain of poor Jem Stickels, is to understate the deathlike silence which fell upon the dense mass of listeners.
Not one man in twenty among the crowd had been prepared for this sensational disclosure, which had, indeed, been communicated to no one but the police. This new fact threw such a sudden light upon the case, thrusting out, as it did, all possibility of his having come by his death through accident, that every man and woman present needed a moment’s breathing space to grasp the new view of the situation thus abruptly presented.
In the meantime the doctor went quietly on with his evidence, much of which was technical and uninteresting to the majority. But the crowd was able to fasten on to the important facts; that the shot had been fired from behind the man, and from the right side of the road, supposing the victim to have been coming toward Stroan; that the injury could not have been self-inflicted; and the crime had been committed within a very short time of the discovery of the body.
“Can you give us any opinion, doctor, as to the length of time which must have elapsed between the firing of the shot and your inspection of the body?”
“My opinion is that death had taken place within an hour, certainly, and probably within a much shorter period.”
“Can you give us your reasons for this opinion?”