(2) It did not escape them, that of the seven persons in the house, no one, with the exception of Shelley, professed to have seen the assassin, either on the occasion of attack No. 1 in the little office, or on the occasion of attack No. 2, at the parlour window.
(3) It did not escape them, that Shelley admitted no third person was present on the occasion of either his first or his second conflict with the assassin.
(4) It did not escape them, that no one of the seven persons, with the exception of Shelley, could speak to having heard a sound, that might not be referred either to the storm, or Shelley’s action, or to the action of some person lawfully in the house.
(5) It did not escape them, that the two pistol explosions in the little office might have been caused by Shelley’s two pistols, there being no evidence (apart from his bare assertion) that one of his pistols had only flashed in the pan during affair No. 1.
(6) It did not escape them, that, as he was passing through the window into the shrubbery at the very moment of Shelley’s appearance in the little office, the assassin acted very strangely in suddenly changing his mind and attacking Shelley, when he had it in his power to accomplish his purpose of passing into the outer darkness.
(7) It did not escape them, that, after knocking Shelley clean down, the assassin surrendered the advantage coming to him from the coup, so far as to throw himself on the floor, and struggle with his adversary, instead of kicking him on the head.
(8) It did not escape them, that, after shrieking from Shelley’s pistol-shot and recovering his feet, the assassin acted in a very unbusiness-like way, in saying, ‘By God, I will be revenged! I will murder your wife; I will ravish your sister! By God, I will be revenged!’
(9) Questions were, of course, put to Shelley respecting the light, which enabled him to see his assailant in the act of quitting the room ‘through a glass-door which opened into the shrubbery.’ It being a starless, pitch-dark night (for the rain descended in torrents), Shelley, if he saw an assailant, must have discerned him by artificial light. It is not to be imagined that the billiard-room and little office were illuminated with many candles, so as to give the combatants a good view of one another. Shelley would scarcely have gone in search of nocturnal enemies with a candle in his hand. If he took a candle into the little office, it must surely have been extinguished soon after he entered the small chamber. The proximity of the shrubbery outside the glass door, would not have lessened the darkness of the room or of the space on which the glass-door opened. What questions were put to Shelley, and what he said, about the light, which rendered the assassin visible, does not appear.
(10) To the investigators it must have appeared strange that the assassin, either with or without a bullet in his shoulder, returned in three hours to make a second attempt on Shelley’s life.
(11) To the same inquisitors it must have seemed remarkable that the assassin preluded this second essay at murder, by thrusting his arm through the glass, and thereby smashing the window. It is unusual for nocturnal assailants to be so noisy in their preliminary movements.