No answer came. He thrust open the door and found the living-room in darkness; he struck a match, lit a candle from the mantelshelf, and held it aloft.
"Hallo, there's nobody here."
The door of the bedroom was open, and the draught—a puff of close air—from the open window beyond suddenly blew shut the front door with a crash.
Sergeant Watson was a man of steady nerve, but he did not like the crash, neither did he like the silence, the heavy, brooding silence. Nevertheless, he lifted his voice valiantly.
"Is there anybody there?" he called.
He could hear the curtain rings faintly rattling in the bedroom, but no answer came to him. Then with the candle in his hand and followed by Nobby, gripping his rifle, he went into Cherriton's bedroom. On the floor beyond the end of Cherriton's bed, near the dressing table, they could see a foot and the lower part of Treves's trouser leg.
"My God!" exclaimed Watson, hurrying forward with a fleeting glance at the open window.
The figure lying near the dressing table with a revolver near it, and a morphia syringe a little distance away, was huddled and motionless.
* * * * *
Three minutes later, Watson, Nobby and two other men stood in an open space on the downs, forty yards before Cherriton's cottage. Watson was busy rearing a tripod stand about five feet in height. When the tripod was ready Nobby handed him a lantern, which was dexterously screwed upon its apex. He struck a match, lit the lantern and flicked open a shutter.