The doctor walked to the bed and examined it closely, turning back the bedclothes.
"There is not a spot of blood on it," he remarked savagely, "you are dreaming."
But my eyes were sharper than his.
"Look here," I said, and pointed to a small red mark on the wall on the farther side of the bed, "what do you call that?" He leaned over the bed and looked at the little stain through his glasses as I held the light.
"Yes," he said after a close scrutiny, "that might be blood, and, strange to say, it seems wet."
He looked at his finger which had just touched it, and it had a slight smear of blood on it.
I had told him on the staircase that I had been attacked by a man who had fired at me, and indeed the smell of powder even on the landing above was very apparent.
"Now come back into the next room," I said, "and see the body of the man who assailed me and whom I knocked down."
He followed me into the boudoir, and I went straight to the corner where I had last seen Saumarez lying.
There was nothing there!