"Did you hear any loud words before the man from the buggy entered?"
"No, I didn't; but I was a long way from the house then."
"He ran up the stairs in too much of a hurry for me to get a glimpse of him. He appeared to be in a terrible hurry."
"Did he speak to the man in the buggy before the latter drove away?"
"Do you remember whether he knocked for admission?"
"I don't believe he did. He had scarcely reached the landing when I heard the bolt of the door fly back and then it opened, and he went in."
"And you heard the loud words directly afterward?"
"My impression is that he had on a long overcoat, which was of a brown color, but I wouldn't be sure of it."
"Did he have a box or parcel in his hand?"
"I am not sure. He went up-stairs so fast that I couldn't see much of him."
"Yes; and I think quite straight and well built."
"What sort of a horse was attached to the buggy?"
"I think it was a light sorrel with a white face. I am sure about the white face."
"Not very much, because he went away so fast."
"I could only see that he had on a slouch hat. I thought it was a little funny that they should be going up to the front door, because I had always noticed that the people who lived around there went in the back way."
Mertes had said nothing of this experience until he fell in with a party of friends who were discussing the discovery in the cottage. Then he added the startling incident of his night trip to the corner grocers, when he was probably the only man besides the murderers who heard the physician's death struggles. The authorities arrived at the conclusion that the loud voices that had startled him were made by the murderers as they fell on their victim, and that the doctor had been attacked the instant that he entered the door, being given no chance to defend himself. Taken in connection with the blows on the body, there was good ground for the theory that he was first struck over the left eye with a billy or sand-bag, and then hacked about the head with a hatchet or ice-pick. The towel that was found about the head might have been used at the start, to stifle any out-cry, and then to strangle the victim when it became apparent that horrible butchery would have to be resorted to to complete the job as it was begun. At the same time it was acknowledged that this theory was hardly compatible with the broken furniture, the blood be-spattered walls, and the other apparent evidence in the room that the physician had made a terrible struggle for life.