“No; I only reached the house a few seconds before the igniting of the cartridges, and Mr. Patterson was found in the lower end of the hall, toward the back stairs.”
“Did you see the position of Mr. Patterson’s body?”
“Yes. Dr. McLane sent for me at once on finding the body.”
The coroner toyed for a second with his pencil, then tossed it on the high desk before which he was sitting. “Had the body been moved?” he asked.
“Dr. McLane told me that it had not.”
“In your opinion, Chief, could a bullet from the cartridges in the burning room have reached Mr. Patterson when standing over the spot where his body was later found lying?”
The coroner’s question electrified Lois McLane, as well as the others in the room. What did he mean to imply by his question? The fire chief was some seconds in answering.
“I carefully measured the distance.” As he spoke the fire chief reached over and took up a pad and pencil from the coroner’s desk. “Here,” he said, drawing a rough outline of the hall and rooms opening from it. “Mr. Patterson must have been standing at this point when shot, judging from where his body was found. The hall curves just at the point where the two doors, leading from Mr. Walter Ogden’s room and the den open into it, and on the opposite side, but a little further down the hall, is a bullet proof safe. The bullet evidently struck the safe, ricocheted down the hall to where Mr. Patterson was standing and penetrated his back.”
“Were there any marks on the safe, Chief?”
“Yes, quite distinct marks where the bullet struck.”