"That is not true," I rejoined, looking at him sternly. "Men do not shoot themselves in the middle of the back!"
He was still unconcerned.
"Very well, then," he retorted; "someone must have shot him." And almost upon the words he turned as white as a sheet.
"Listen," he cried in a loud whisper; "did you not hear them?"
I listened and certainly heard the sound of voices.
It came through an open door at the far end of the gallery and rose in a sharp crescendo, which seemed to say that men were quarrelling.
"Who is in the house?" I asked the fellow.
"I do not know," he said gravely enough. "There should be no one here but ourselves. Perhaps you will be good enough to see. You are a soldier; it is your business."
I laughed at his impudence, and having looked to the priming of my pistol, I caught him suddenly by the arm and pushed him on ahead of me. Justly or not, it had flashed upon me that this might be a trap. Yet why it should be so or what it had to do with a surgeon-major of the Guards I knew no more than the dead.
"We will go together," said I; and so I pushed him down the corridor.