Colonel Maddison took a lantern from one of the men, and ran forward to the water's edge. The dog rose as he approached, and walked slowly round the prostrate form, sniffing at it, and whining piteously. John Mellish called the animal away.
"This man was in a sitting posture when he was shot," said Colonel Maddison, decisively. "He was sitting upon this bench."
He pointed to a dilapidated rustic seat close to the margin of the stagnant water.
"He was sitting upon this bench," repeated the colonel; "for he's fallen close against it, as you see. Unless I'm very much mistaken, he was shot from behind."
"You don't think he shot himself, then?" asked John Mellish.
"Shot himself!" cried the colonel; "not a bit of it. But we'll soon settle that. If he shot himself, the pistol must be close against him. Here, bring a loose plank from that summer-house, and lay the body upon it," added the Indian officer, speaking to the servants.
Captain Prodder and the two grooms selected the broadest plank they could find. It was moss-grown and rotten, and straggling wreaths of wild clematis were entwined about it; but it served the purpose for which it was wanted. They laid it upon the grass, and lifted the body of James Conyers on to it, with his handsome face—ghastly and horrible in the fixed agony of sudden death—turned upward to the moonlit sky. It was wonderful how mechanically and quietly they went to work, promptly and silently obeying the colonel's orders.
John Mellish and Mr. Lofthouse searched the slippery grass upon the bank, and groped amongst the fringe of fern, without result. There was no weapon to be found anywhere within a considerable radius of the body.
While they were searching in every direction for this missing link in the mystery of the man's death, the parish-constable arrived with the servant who had been sent to summon him.
He had very little to say for himself, except that he supposed it was poachers as had done it; and that he also supposed all particklars would come out at the inquest. He was a simple rural functionary, accustomed to petty dealings with refractory tramps, contumacious poachers, and impounded cattle, and was scarcely master of the situation in any great emergency.