Despite her effort to remain calm, the girl’s voice shook a little. She made a little helpless gesture of her hands. A diamond ring she was wearing on her finger caught the light and blazed for an instant.
“Then I got frightened. I ran back along the corridor to the lounge where the others were and told them.”
“When you knocked at the door, you say there was no reply. I suppose, now, you tried the handle first.”
“Oh, yes ...”
“Then Mr. Parrish would have heard the two sounds? The turning of the handle and then the knocking on the door? That’s so, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose so ...”
“Yet you say there was no reply?”
“No. None at all.”
The Inspector jotted a word or two in his notebook as it lay open flat upon the table.
“The shot, then, was fired immediately after you had knocked? Not while you were knocking?”