I waited until Jenkins had gone and then I replied to McKelvie's statement. "What you have just remarked is utterly impossible," I retorted. "Ruth heard the shot before she saw the lamp spring into being, and she was speaking the truth."
He laughed. "Certainly, I am not disputing that point. I am merely making the assertion that the murderer shot his victim while the lamp, and for all I know, all the lights were lighted."
"But——"
"On second thoughts I don't believe I'll tell you. You might be as skeptical of my information as you were triumphant just now at having roused my ire," he answered laconically, and I knew that I had not deceived him long with my pretense of blockheadedness.
"I promise to believe anything you may say and swallow it all, hook, line and sinker," I pleaded.
"Well, perhaps under those circumstances—" he appeared to reflect, then said abruptly, "Would you call Dr. Haskins a man who knew his business?"
"Yes, decidedly so," I replied, surprised at the turn in the conversation.
"He remarked, if you remember, that Philip Darwin lived twenty minutes after the bullet had penetrated his lung, and yet he also agreed with the coroner's physician that Philip Darwin died at midnight or shortly thereafter. You yourself can testify that the shot was fired at midnight. How then do you account for the discrepancies in these various facts, for facts they are?"
My mind reverted to the inquest, and I heard again the pompous coroner's physician explaining Dr. Haskins' mistake, and I also recalled the young doctor's face, which certainly belied his apparent acquiescence with the other's statement. And suddenly I saw what McKelvie was driving at. Yet, how could it possibly be?
"You mean that he had already been shot when Ruth entered this room?" I said slowly, hardly daring to believe that which I uttered. It was so incredible, so seemingly impossible!