“From inside the room? Hardly! And certainly not with that. It’s a very small fulminate of mercury shell, and never held lead. No. The man was down, if not dead, before that went off.”
Average Jones was now at the window. Taking a piece of paper from his pocket he brushed the contents of the window-sill upon it. A dozen dead flies rolled upon the paper. He examined them thoughtfully, cast them aside and turned back to the manager.
“Who occupy the adjoining rooms?”
“Two maiden ladies did, on the east. They’ve left,” said the manager bitterly. “Been coming here for ten years, and now they’ve quit. If the facts ever get in the newspapers—”
“What’s on the west, adjoining?”
“Nothing. The corridor runs down there.”
“Then it isn’t probable that any one got into the room from either side.”
“Impossible,” said the manager.
Here Mr. Thomas Colvin McIntyre arrived with a flushed face.
“You are right, Average,” he said. “The same man had reserved rooms at the Nederstrom for Telfik Bey.”