Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/368

336 that the rear stairs were visible. "These husband and wife cases, Mr. Trant," he said easily. "You think—and the man thinks, too—the woman will stand everything; and she does—till he does one more thing too much, and, all of a sudden, she lets him have it!"

"Don't you think it's a bit premature," the psychologist suggested, "to assume that she killed him?"

"Didn't you see how she shut up when she saw me?" Siler's eyes met Trant's with a flash of opposition. "That was because she recognized me and knew that, having been here last time there was trouble, I knew that he had been threatening her. It's a cinch! Regular minister's son, he was; the old man's a missionary, you know; spent his life till two years ago trying to turn Chinese heathens into Christians. And this Walter—our station blotter'd be black with his doings; only, ever since he made China too hot to hold him and the old man brought him back here, everything's been hushed up on the old man's account. But I happen to have been here before; and all winter I've known there'd be a killing if he ever came back. Hell! I tell you it was a relief to me to see it was him on the floor when that door went down. There are no powder marks, you see," the officer led Trant's eyes back to the wound in the head of the form beside the lounge. "He could not have shot himself. He was shot from further off than he could reach. Besides, it's on the left side."

"Yes; I saw," Trant replied.

"And that little automatic gun," the officer stooped now and picked up the pistol that lay on the floor