Instantly she was on her feet. "He put it in the drawer of the table in his study. Stay here, dear, while I see if I can get it."
She opened the door of the drawing-room and crossed the hall to the study. The drawing-room occupied about one-third of the lower floor of the main wing and lay to the right of the entrance hall, while the study was its exact counterpart on the left, so that the door of the study was directly opposite the door of the drawing-room which was now open before me.
I saw Ruth try the door of the study and as it yielded to her hand she advanced timidly into the room, leaving the door barely ajar behind her. My view being thus effectually cut off I strained forward in an endeavor to catch the slightest sound, but was only rewarded by the most profound stillness, through which there presently echoed and re-echoed the voice of the old clock in the hall proclaiming the midnight hour. Then, as if that ancient time-piece had been the signal previously agreed upon, there rang through the house from the direction of the study the sharp report of a pistol, followed by silence, absolute, profound!
A moment I remained petrified, then with a bound I gained the study door, my one thought for Ruth. But on the threshold I stood rooted to the spot by the sight that met my eyes!
In the patch of light cast by a small lamp upon the study table, lying back in his chair with a sardonic grin on his face and an ever-widening stain upon his shirt front, was Philip Darwin, while beside him as if turned to stone, stood Ruth with a pistol in her hand!
CHAPTER III
THE POLICE
"Ruth!"
My cry startled her. Dropping the pistol and flinging out her arms, she laughed hysterically and stumbled toward me. Something in my face, perhaps the horror I could not help revealing, arrested her before she reached me.