But
there was other evidence far more important. The great pool of
blood was just half-way between the door of the passage and the
armchair. It was here, therefore, that the attack had taken place.
The pastor could not have turned in this direction in the hope of
flight, for there was nothing here to give him shelter, no weapon
that he could grasp, not even a cane. He must have turned in this
direction to meet and greet the invader who had entered his room in
this unusual manner. Turned to meet him as a brave man would, with
no other weapon than the sacredness of his calling and his age.
But this had not been enough to protect the venerable priest. The
murderer must have made his thrust at once and his victim had sunk
down dying on the floor of the room in which he had spent so many
hours of quiet study, in which he had brought comfort and given
advice to so many anxious hearts; for dying he must have been--it
would be impossible for a man to lose so much blood and live.
"The struggle," thought the detective, "but was there a struggle?"
He looked about the room again, but could see nothing that showed
disorder anywhere in its immaculate neatness.
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