What she did say was this: 

“Is there a bullet gone?  Did he fire off that pistol?” A question so manifestly one of delirium that no one answered it, which seemed to surprise her, though she said nothing till her glance had passed all around the walls of the room to where a window stood open to the night,—­its lower sash being entirely raised.  “There! look there!” she cried, with a commanding accent, and, throwing up her hands, sank a dead weight into the arms of those supporting her.

No one understood; but naturally more than one rushed to the window.  An open space was before them.  Here lay the fields not yet parcelled out into lots and built upon; but it was not upon these they looked, but upon the strong trellis which they found there, which, if it supported no vine, formed a veritable ladder between this window and the ground.

Could she have meant to call attention to this fact; and were her words expressive of another idea than the obvious one of suicide?

If so, to what lengths a woman’s imagination can go!  Or so their combined looks seemed to proclaim, when to their utter astonishment they saw the officer, who had presented a calm appearance up till now, shift his position and with a surprised grunt direct their eyes to a portion of the wall just visible beyond the half-drawn curtains of the bed.  The mirror hanging there showed a star-shaped breakage, such as follows the sharp impact of a bullet or a fiercely projected stone.

“He fired two shots.  One went wild; the other straight home.”

It was the officer delivering his opinion.

Mr. Saunders, returning from the distant room where he had assisted in carrying Mrs. Hammond, cast a look at the shattered glass, and remarked forcibly: 

“I heard but one; and I was sitting up, disturbed by that poor infant.  Jennie, did you hear more than one shot?” he asked, turning toward his wife.

“No,” she answered, but not with the readiness he had evidently expected.  “I heard only one, but that was not quite usual in its tone.  I’m used to guns,” she explained, turning to the officer.  “My father was an army man, and he taught me very early to load and fire a pistol.  There was a prolonged sound to this shot; something like an echo of itself, following close upon the first ping.  Didn’t you notice that, Warren?”

“I remember something of the kind,” her husband allowed.

“He shot twice and quickly,” interposed the policeman, sententiously.  “We shall find a spent bullet back of that mirror.”

But when, upon the arrival of the coroner, an investigation was made of the mirror and the wall behind, no bullet was found either there or any where else in the room, save in the dead man’s breast.  Nor had more than one been shot from his pistol, as five full chambers testified.  The case which seemed so simple had its mysteries, but the assertion made by Mrs. Saunders no longer carried weight, nor was the evidence offered by the broken mirror considered as indubitably establishing the fact that a second shot had been fired in the room.