"Ask Mr. Henshaw up," Kelson said to the landlord, and in a minute he was ushered in.
With a quick, decisive movement Henshaw took the seat to which Kelson invited him.
"I trust you won't think me intrusive, gentlemen," he began in his sharp mode of speaking, "but you will understand I am very much upset and horribly perplexed by the terrible fate which has overtaken my poor brother. I am setting myself to search for a clue, if ever so slight, to the mystery, the double mystery, I may say, and it occurred to me that perhaps a talk with you gentlemen who are, so far, the last known persons who spoke with him, might possibly give me a hint."
"I'm afraid there is very little we can tell you," Gifford replied. "But we are at your service."
"Thank you." It seemed the first civil word of acknowledgment they had heard him utter. "First of all," he proceeded, falling back to his dry, lawyer-like tone, "I have been to see the medical man who was summoned to look at the body, Dr. Page. He tells me that, so far as his cursory examination went, the position of the wound hardly suggests that it was self-inflicted."
"Is he sure of it?" Kelson asked.
"He won't be positive till he has made the autopsy," Henshaw answered. "He merely suggests that it was a very awkward and altogether unlikely place for a man to wound himself. Anyhow that guarded opinion is enough to strengthen my inclination to scout the idea of suicide."
"Then," said Kelson, "we are faced by the difficulty of the locked door."
Henshaw made a gesture of indifference.
"That at first sight presents a problem, I admit," he said, "but not so complete as to look absolutely insoluble. I have, as you may be aware, made a study of criminology, and in my researches, which have included criminality, have come across incidents which to the smartest detective brains were at the outset quite as baffling. Clement's tragic end is a great blow to me, and I am not going quietly to accept the easy, obvious conclusion of suicide. I knew and appreciated my brother better than that. I mean to probe this business to the bottom."