I had reached that point when Sperry came down the staircase, ushering out the detectives and the medical man.  He came to the library door and stood looking at me, with his face rather paler than usual.

“I’ll take you up now,” he said.  “She’s in her room, in bed, and she has had an opiate.”

“Was he shot above the ear?”

“Yes.”

I did not look at him, nor he at me.  We climbed the stairs and entered the room, where, according to Elinor’s story, Arthur Wells had killed himself.  It was a dressing-room, as Miss Jeremy had described.  A wardrobe, a table with books and magazines in disorder, two chairs, and a couch, constituted the furnishings.  Beyond was a bathroom.  On a chair by a window the dead mans’s evening clothes were neatly laid out, his shoes beneath.  His top hat and folded gloves were on the table.

Arthur Wells lay on the couch.  A sheet had been drawn over the body, and I did not disturb it.  It gave the impression of unusual length that is always found, I think, in the dead, and a breath of air from an open window, by stirring the sheet, gave a false appearance of life beneath.

The house was absolutely still.

When I glanced at Sperry he was staring at the ceiling, and I followed his eyes, but there was no mark on it.  Sperry made a little gesture.

“It’s queer,” he muttered.  “It’s—­”

“The detective and I put him there.  He was here.”  He showed a place on the floor midway of the room.

“Where was his head lying?” I asked, cautiously.

“Here.”

I stooped and examined the carpet.  It was a dark Oriental, with much red in it.  I touched the place, and then ran my folded handkerchief over it.  It came up stained with blood.

“There would be no object in using cold water there, so as not to set the stain,” Sperry said thoughtfully.  “Whether he fell there or not, that is where she allowed him to be found.”

“You don’t think he fell there?”

“She dragged him, didn’t she?” he demanded.  Then the strangeness of what he was saying struck him, and he smiled foolishly.  “What I mean is, the medium said she did.  I don’t suppose any jury would pass us tonight as entirely sane, Horace,” he said.

He walked across to the bathroom and surveyed it from the doorway.  I followed him.  It was as orderly as the other room.  On a glass shelf over the wash-stand were his razors, a safety and, beside it, in a black case, an assortment of the long-bladed variety, one for each day of the week, and so marked.

Sperry stood thoughtfully in the doorway.

“The servants are out,” he said.  “According to Elinor’s statement he was dressing when he did it.  And yet some one has had a wild impulse for tidiness here, since it happened.  Not a towel out of place!”