I had forgotten the weapon, but perceived it now, on the floor just beyond Le Gaire's head.
"Yes, it was dropped when I fell," I took a step toward her. "You will go back, will you not?"
She seemed to shrink from my approach, and moved backward, still facing me, until she came to her own door. There she remained a moment, clinging to the knob, but as I emerged into the full light of the front hall, she stepped into the room, and closed the door. Some way, her action hurt me worse than any words could have done, yet I walked past to the stairs in silence, and called to the guard below.
Miles came up with the two Confederates, and a dozen words of explanation sufficed. Together we picked up the body, bore it into a near-by room, and placed it upon the bed. The man had been struck back of the ear, apparently by the butt of a revolver or the stock of a gun, the skull crushed. Death had been instantaneous; possibly he never knew what hit him. We examined the wound, and then looked into each others' faces utterly unable to account for the condition.
"By Gad, I don't see how he ever got that," said Hardy. "Nor this ugly cut here on the forehead. What do you make out of it, Galesworth?"
I shook my head, thoroughly mystified.
"I've told you all I know; he was lying there in the open when I found him--there was nothing he could have struck against in falling."
"That was a blow struck him," insisted the sergeant, "either by a square-handled pistol, or a carbine stock. I've seen that sorter thing before; but who the hell ever hit him?"
No one attempted to answer. Then I said,
"The only thing I have noticed which might be a clue is this: when I first came in through the kitchen I discovered a clod of fresh clay dirt on the back stairs. I supposed it had dropped from Le Gaire's boots. But there's no sign of yellow clay on his boots now. It must have been some one else."