"Now, Mr. Knox, what about you?"
"I opened the door into Mr. Fleming's room, perhaps a couple of minutes after Mr. Wardrop went out," I said. "He was dead then, leaning on his outspread arms over the table; he had been shot in the forehead."
"You heard no shot while you were in the hall?"
"There was considerable noise; I heard two or three sharp reports like the explosions of an automobile engine."
"Did they seem close at hand?"
"Not particularly; I thought, if I thought at all, that they were on the street."
"You are right about the automobile," Hunter said dryly. "The mayor sent his car away as I left to follow Mr. Wardrop. The sounds you heard were not shots."
"It is a strange thing," the chief reflected, "that a revolver could be fired in the upper room of an ordinary dwelling house, while that house was filled with people—and nobody hear it. Were there any powder marks on the body?"
"None," Hunter said.
The chief got up stiffly.