Arnesson considered. “Hard to say,” he concluded. “He was never a gay soul. But suicide? . . . I don’t know. However, you say there’s no question about it; so there you are.”
“Quite, quite. And how does this new situation fit into your formula?”
“Dissipates the whole equation, of course. No more need for speculation.” Despite his words, he appeared uncertain. “What I can’t understand,” he added, “is why he should choose the archery-room. Lot of space in his own house for a felo-de-se.”
“There was a convenient gun in the archery-room,” suggested Vance. “And that reminds me: Sergeant Heath would like to have Miss Dillard identify the weapon, as a matter of form.”
“That’s easy. Where is it?”
Heath handed it to him, and he started from the room.
“Also”—Vance halted him—“you might ask Miss Dillard if she kept playing cards in the archery-room.”
Arnesson returned in a few minutes and informed us that the gun was the one which had been in the tool-chest drawer, and that not only were playing cards kept in the table drawer of the archery-room but that Pardee knew of their presence there.
Doctor Doremus appeared soon afterwards and iterated his conclusion that Pardee had shot himself.
“That’ll be my report,” he said. “Can’t see any way out of it. To be sure, lots of suicides are fakes—but that’s your province. Nothing in the least suspicious here.”