The detective’s wonderment grew as the front door flew back and he stepped over its threshold into the semidarkness of the large central hall of the house. The stillness was broken by a low-voiced direction, and Ferguson, peering around, saw a man, his presence partly concealed behind the open front door, watching him. The man shut the door with such care that it made no sound.
“Come this way,” he repeated, and Ferguson, with an instinctive bow, realized he was addressed by a member of the household and not a servant. Checking his impulse to ask questions, the detective followed his guide across the hall and into a brilliantly lighted room. The sudden transition from semidarkness caused Ferguson to blink owlishly, and he paused abruptly on hearing the faint click of the folding doors, through which they had entered, being closed behind them.
“Coroner Penfield is over there,” stated his guide, and Ferguson, grown more accustomed to the light, looked in the direction indicated just as Penfield rose from his stooping position and turned toward him. The coroner’s expression changed at sight of the detective and he beckoned him to approach. An instant later and Ferguson was staring down at the figure of a man lying partly turned upon his back. Penfield pointed to the small wound over the heart and to the ashen cheeks and staring eyes.
“Dead,” he said, tersely. “Stabbed.”
Ferguson whistled low, shot one questioning look at the coroner, and then turned his attention to the dead man and the room. With minute care he examined the body and then scanned the library. There was no indication of a struggle having taken place, no chairs or tables were overturned. Ferguson paused in perplexity—the orderly appearance of the room surprised him; his eyes ran up and down the book-lined walls, over the handsome curtains drawn across the deep window alcoves, and the drawn portières—the furnishing of the library was a key to the wealth and good taste of its owner, but as the background for the scene of a tragedy it failed lamentably to give any clew to it or answer his yet unasked questions.
“Well, doctor,” he turned to the coroner, “who’s the dead man and who stabbed him?”
Instead of replying, Penfield addressed the third man in the library who, since admitting the detective, had remained a silent witness of their investigations.
“Major Richards,” he began, “kindly repeat just what you told me on my arrival,” and seating himself at a convenient table, he drew out a fountain pen and a memorandum pad. “Major Joseph Richards,” he added by way of explanation, “is Mr. Hale’s son-in-law, Ferguson.”
Richards acknowledged the detective’s jerky bow at mention of his name with a grave inclination of his head.
“The information I can give you is meager,” he stated, and Ferguson, sensitive to first impressions, grew conscious of an undercurrent of agitation admirably controlled by Richards’ deliberation of speech; only a longer acquaintance would tell whether such was characteristic of him. “I returned from the club about twenty minutes past one, found my wife”—his hesitation was almost imperceptible—“indisposed, and on coming in here later to look for a bottle of bromide which she had left on the library table, I discovered”—