Mystery of the Inn by the Shore

To say that you could have heard a pin drop in the crowded court at Stroan, when the doctor announced that he had found a bullet in the brain of poor Jem Stickels, is to understate the deathlike silence which fell upon the dense mass of listeners.

Not one man in twenty among the crowd had been prepared for this sensational disclosure, which had, indeed, been communicated to no one but the police. This new fact threw such a sudden light upon the case, thrusting out, as it did, all possibility of his having come by his death through accident, that every man and woman present needed a moment's breathing space to grasp the new view of the situation thus abruptly presented.