The object on which the outstretched arms rested was an old Dutch hood clock, which had fallen or been dragged from a niche in the wall, and lay face uppermost, the glass case open and smashed, the hands:  stopped at the hour of half-past nine.  It was a clock of the seventeenth century, of a design still to be found occasionally in old English houses.  A landscape scene was painted in the arch above the dial, showing the moon above a wood, in a sky crowded with stars.  The moon was depicted as a human face, with eyes which moved in response to the swing of the pendulum.  But the pendulum was motionless, and the goggle eyes of the mechanism stared up almost reproachfully, as though calling upon the two men to rescue it from such an undignified position.  At the bottom of the dial appeared the name of Jan Fromantel, the famous Dutch clockmaker, and underneath was an inscription in German lettering—­

    “Every tick that I do give
     Cuts short the time you have to live. 
     Praise thy Maker, mend thy ways,
     Till Death, the thief, shall steal thy days.”

“Look at the blood!” said Austin Turold, pointing to a streak of blood on the large white dial.  “How did it happen?”

“I know very little more than yourself.  Your sister called at my house about an hour ago and asked me to accompany her here.  She wished to see your brother on some private business, and she was very anxious that I should accompany her.  Thalassa let us in, and said he was afraid that there was something wrong with his master.  We came upstairs immediately, burst in the door, and found—­this.”

“Did Thalassa hear the shot?”

“He says not, only the crash.”

“That would be the clock, of course.  Was my brother quite dead when you found him?”

“Just dead.  The body was quite warm.”

“The door was locked from inside, I think you said.”

“We found it locked.”

“Then it must have been locked from inside,” returned the other, who appeared to be pursuing some hidden train of thought.  “But where’s the key?  I do not see it in the door.  Oh, here it is!” He stooped swiftly and picked up a key from the floor.  “Robert must have taken it out after locking the door.”

“Perhaps it fell out when we were breaking in the door,” observed the doctor.

“Of course.  I forgot that.  I notice that the clock is stopped at half-past nine.”  He bent down to examine it.  “My brother kept private papers in the clock-case,” he added.  “Yes—­it is as I thought.  Here are some private documents, including his will.  I had better take charge of them.”

“Yes; I should if I were you,” counselled his companion.

Austin rose to his feet and placed the papers in his pocket.

“It is plain to me—­now—­how it happened,” he said.  “Poor Robert must have shot himself, then tried to get his will from the clock-case when he fell, bringing down the clock with him.”