Breakfast that morning was a melancholy meal, except to Hilary Gallaway. He refrained from jesting openly about the night’s excitement; but his eyes twinkled whenever they met mine, and I knew he thought it a tremendously good joke for the shooting to have taken place right under my nose. During his wife’s presence at the table, however, he was almost grave, as if not to offend her.
Mrs. Gallaway left the table shortly, and Dr. Rench joined us. He said that both of his patients were in as good shape as could be expected, and he thought both would recover.
The bullet had barely grazed the girl’s ribs and breast bone, going through the flesh and muscles of her chest, in on the right side and out again on the left. Except for the shock and the loss of blood, she was not in danger, although she was still unconscious.
Exon was sleeping, the doctor said; so Shand and I crept up into his room to examine it. The first bullet had gone into the doorframe, about four inches above the one that had been fired the night before. The second bullet had pierced the Japanese screen, and, after passing through the girl, had lodged in the plaster of the wall. We dug out both bullets—they were of .38-caliber. Both had been apparently fired from the vicinity of one of the windows—either just inside or just outside.
Shand and I grilled the Chinese cook, the farmhands, and the Figgs, unmercifully that day. Detectives are only human—or at least this one is—and I don’t mind confessing that some of my humiliation and chagrin was worked of on these people. But they came through it standing-up—there was nothing to fix the shooting on any of them.