Wilson, completely dressed, lay extended on the floor a lifeless corpse. He had been stabbed in two places in the breast with some sharp-pointed instrument. Life was quite extinct. The window was open. On farther inspection, several bundles containing many of Wilson's valuables in jewelry and plate, together with clothes, shirts, silk handkerchiefs, were found. The wardrobe and a secretary-bureau had been forced open. The assassins had, it seemed, been disturbed, and had hurried off by the window without their plunder. A hat was also picked up in the room, a shiny, black hat, much too small for the deceased. The constable snatched it up, and attempted to clap it on Armstrong's head, but it was not nearly large enough. This, together with the bundles, dissipated a suspicion which had been growing in Johnson's mind, and he roughly exclaimed, "You need not look so scared, farmer; it's not you: that's quite clear."
To this remark neither Armstrong nor his wife answered a syllable, but continued to gaze at the corpse, the bundles, and the broken locks, in bewildered terror and astonishment. Presently some one asked if any body had seen Mrs. Strugnell?
The question roused Armstrong, and he said, "She is not come home: her door is locked."
"How do you know that?" cried the constable, turning sharply round, and looking keenly in his face. "How do you know that?"
"Because—because," stammered Armstrong, "because she always locks it when she goes out."
"Which is her room?"
"The next to this."
They hastened out, and found the next door was fast.
"Are you there, Mrs. Strugnell?" shouted Johnson.
There was no reply.