At One-Thirty, Isabel Ostrander [ebook reader with highlight function .TXT] 📗

Gaunt had approached the body, and was passing his fingers lightly and thoroughly over it.

"No doubt about robbery being the motive?" he asked, as he worked.

"Oh, no," the Inspector put in, easily. "No weapon found, window open, tracks before window in the carpet and on the curtains, and Mr. Appleton's jewelry and money gone."

"I understand." Gaunt bent and sniffed the powder-blackened shirt about the wound. "Looks as if Mr. Appleton might have recognized, or thought he recognized, the thief, doesn't it, when he let him get as near as he did to shoot him, without attempting to get on his feet, or make any outcry?"

'"Maybe he did jump to his feet, and fell back again when he was shot?" suggested the Inspector, thoughtfully.

"Hardly, seeing the way he was clutching the arms of the chair. Even death didn't release that vise-like grip. He might have clutched his breast whe