Yet it was equally evident that the charge which had entered the dead speculator’s breast had not been delivered at the close range of the pistol found clutched in his hand.  There were no powder-marks to be discerned on his pajama-jacket, or on the flesh beneath.  Thus anomaly confronted anomaly, leaving open but one other theory:  that the bullet found in Mr. Hammond’s breast came from the window and the one he shot went out of it.  But this would necessitate his having shot his pistol from a point far removed from where he was found; and his wound was such as made it difficult to believe that he would stagger far, if at all, after its infliction.

Yet, because the coroner was both conscientious and alert, he caused a most rigorous search to be made of the ground overlooked by the above mentioned window; a search in which the police joined, but which was without any result save that of rousing the attention of people in the neighbourhood and leading to a story being circulated of a man seen some time the night before crossing the fields in a great hurry.  But as no further particulars were forthcoming, and not even a description of the man to be had, no emphasis would have been laid upon this story had it not transpired that the moment a report of it had come to Mrs. Hammond’s ears (why is there always some one to carry these reports?) she roused from the torpor into which she had fallen, and in wild fashion exclaimed: 

“I knew it!  I expected it!  He was shot through the window and by that wretch.  He never shot himself.”  Violent declarations which trailed off into the one continuous wail, “O, my baby! my poor baby!”

Such words, even though the fruit of delirium, merited some sort of attention, or so this good coroner thought, and as soon as opportunity offered and she was sufficiently sane and quiet to respond to his questions, he asked her whom she had meant by that wretch, and what reason she had, or thought she had, of attributing her husband’s death to any other agency than his own disgust with life.

And then it was that his sympathies, although greatly roused in her favour began to wane.  She met the question with a cold stare followed by a few ambiguous words out of which he could make nothing.  Had she said wretch?  She did not remember.  They must not be influenced by anything she might have uttered in her first grief.  She was well-nigh insane at the time.  But of one thing they might be sure:  her husband had not shot himself; he was too much afraid of death for such an act.  Besides, he was too happy.  Whatever folks might say he was too fond of his family to wish to leave it.

Nor did the coroner or any other official succeed in eliciting anything further from her.  Even when she was asked, with cruel insistence, how she explained the fact that the baby was found lying on the floor instead of in its crib, her only answer was:  “His father was trying to soothe it.  The child was crying dreadfully, as you have heard from those who were kept awake by him that night, and my husband was carrying him about when the shot came which caused George to fall and overlay the baby in his struggles.”