Robert Barr

“ She expected him in every moment to make ready for his departure down town. She heard the click of the front gate, and a moment later some angry words. Alarmed, she was about to look through the parted curtains of the bay-window in front when the sharp crack of a revolver rang out, and she hastened to the door with a vague sinking fear at her heart. ”

“ But tell me this: is it true that if John lives through the week his murderer will escape?"
"How do you mean, escape?"
"Is it the law of the State that if my husband lives till the end of this week, the man who shot him will not be tried for murder?"
"He will not be tried for murder," said the lawyer, "but he may not be tried for murder even if John were to die now. His friends will doubtless try to make it out a case of manslaughter as it is; or perhaps they will try to get him off on the ground of self-defence. ”

“ As she flung open the door she saw two things—first, her husband lying face downwards on the grass motionless, his right arm doubled under him; second, a man trying frantically to undo the fastening of the front gate, with a smoking pistol still in his hand.
Human lives often hang on trivialities. The murderer in his anxiety to be undisturbed had closed the front gate tightly. ”