"Nothing has been touched up to now," said Cecil Barker. "I'll answerfor that. You see it all exactly as I found it."
"When was that?" The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.
"It was just half-past eleven. I had not begun to undress, and I wassitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report. It was notvery loud--it seemed to be muffled. I rushed down--I don't suppose itwas thirty seconds before I was in the room."
"Was the door open?"
"Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him. His bedroomcandle was burning on the table. It was I who lit the lamp some minutesafterward."
"Did you see no one?"
"No. I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I rushedout to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight. Mrs. Allen, thehousekeeper, came and took her away. Ames had arrived, and we ran backinto the room once more."
"But surely I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night."
"Yes, it was up until I lowered it."
"Then how could any murderer have got away? It is out of the question!Mr. Douglas must have shot himself."
"That was our first idea. But see!" Barker drew aside the curtain, andshowed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent."And look at this!" He held the lamp down and illuminated a smudge ofblood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill. "Someone hasstood there in getting out."
"You mean that someone waded across the moat?"
"Exactly!"
"Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, hemust have been in the water at that very moment."
"I have not a doubt of it. I wish to heaven that I had rushed to thewindow! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it neveroccurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could notlet her enter the room. It would have been too horrible."
"Horrible enough!" said the doctor, looking at the shattered head andthe terrible marks which surrounded it. "I've never seen such injuriessince the Birlstone railway smash."
"But, I say," remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic commonsense was still pondering the open window. "It's all very well yoursaying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is,how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was up?"
"Ah, that's the question," said Barker.
"At what o'clock was it raised?"
"It was nearly six o'clock," said Ames, the butler.
"I've heard," said the sergeant, "that it was usually raised at sunset.That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year."
"Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea," said Ames. "I couldn't raise ituntil they went. Then I wound it up myself."
"Then it comes to this," said the sergeant: "If anyone came fromoutside--if they did--they must have got in across the bridge beforesix and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the roomafter eleven."
"That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the lastthing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. Thatbrought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got awaythrough the window and left his gun behind him. That's how I read it;for nothing else will fit the facts."
The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on thefloor. The initials V. V. and under them the number 341 were rudelyscrawled in ink upon it.
"What's this?" he asked, holding it up.
Barker looked at it with curiosity. "I never noticed it before," hesaid. "The murderer must have left it behind him."
"V. V.--341. I can make no sense of that."
The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. "What's V. V.?Somebody's initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr. Wood?"
It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front ofthe fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker pointedto a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.