“Did it strike you that he was in fear of something?”
“No; not in the least. He was more like a man who had suffered a great sorrow and couldn’t shake the effects of it.”
“When he went out did you go with him into the hall—that is, did you note which direction he took?”
“No. We always treated Pardee very informally here. He said good-night and left the room. I took it for granted he went to the front door and let himself out.”
“Did you go to your own room at once?”
“In about ten minutes. I stayed up only long enough to arrange some papers I’d been working on.”
Vance lapsed into silence—he was obviously puzzled over some phase of the episode; and Markham took up the interrogation.
“I suppose,” he said, “that it is useless to ask if you heard any sound last night that might have been a shot.”
“Everything in the house was quiet,” Professor Dillard replied. “And anyway no sound of a shot would carry from the archery-room to this floor. There are two flights of stairs, the entire length of the lower hall and a passageway, and three heavy doors between. Moreover, the walls of this old house are very thick and solid.”
“And no one,” supplemented Vance, “could have heard the shot from the street, for the archery-room windows were carefully closed.”