Dr. Holmes pursed his lips.

"I can form no definite opinion on that point," he said. "By the direction of the bullet, I should say not."

"Have you found the bullet?"

"No, it is in the body. As apparently it took a course towards the right after entering the body, and there is no corresponding wound in the back, I should say that it is lodged somewhere in the vertical column. Of course, I cannot be sure."

"The Government pathologist will clear up these points when he makes the post-mortem examination," said Merrington. "I do not think we have any more questions to ask you, doctor."

"How is your patient, the young husband?" asked Captain Stanhill, as Dr. Holmes rose.

"The symptoms point to brain fever. The family, on my advice, have sent to London for Sir Ralph Horton, the eminent brain doctor."

"I do not wonder his mind has given way under the shock," remarked Captain Stanhill. "To lose his wife in such terrible circ.u.mstances after three months' marriage must have been a cruel blow."

"It was the worse in his case because he has always been nervous and highly strung from childhood-partly, I think, as the result of his infirmity. He has a deformed foot. His present illness seems to be a complete overthrow of the nervous system. I have been with him the greater part of the night. He has been highly delirious, but he is a little quieter now."

Merrington p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at this last remark. After his fruitless investigations of the morning he was inclined to think that the clue to the murder lay in the past-it might be in some former folly or secret intrigue of the young wife's single days. The question was, in that case, whether the husband was likely to have any knowledge of his wife's secret. If he had, he might, in his delirium, babble something which would provide a clue to trace the murderer. It was a poor chance, but the poorest chance was worth trying in such a baffling case.

"I should like to have a look at your patient," he said to Dr. Holmes.

"It would be impossible to question him in his present state," replied the doctor stiffly.

"I do not wish to question him. I merely wish to look at him."

"In that case you may see him. He is quite unconscious, and recognizes n.o.body. I will take you to his room, if you wish."

The little doctor bustled along the corridor, and turned into a pa.s.sage traversing the right wing of the moat-house. About half way down it he paused before a door, which he opened softly, and motioned to the other two to enter.

It was a single bedroom, panelled in oak, which was dark with age, with one small window; but it had the advantage of being as far away as possible from the upstairs bedroom in the left wing where Phil's wife lay murdered. A small fire burnt in the grate, a china bowl of autumn flowers bloomed on a table near the bedside, and a capable looking nurse was preparing a draught by the window. She glanced at the three men as they entered, but went on with her occupation.

The sick man lay on his back, breathing heavily. His black hair framed a face which was ghastly in its whiteness, and his upturned eyes, barely visible beneath the half-closed lids, seemed fixed and motionless.

"Any change, nurse?" the doctor asked.

"No change, sir."

But even as she spoke Phil's face changed in a manner which was wonderful in its suddenness. His features became contorted, as though a sword had been thrust through his vitals, and he struggled upright in his bed, with one shaking hand outstretched. His eyes, glaring with delirium, roved restlessly over the faces of the men at the foot of the bed.

"She's dead, I tell you! Violet's dead.... Have they found him? Ah, who's that?"

Once again he uttered his young wife's name, and fell back on the pillow, motionless as before, but with one arm athwart his face, as though to cover his eyes.

"I shall be glad if you will leave the room," said the little doctor gravely. "Your presence excites him." He hurried round to the bedside and bent over his patient.

CHAPTER IX

"Have you formed any theory of the murder yet?"

It was the evening of the same day, and Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill were once more in the moat-house library. It was Captain Stanhill who asked the question, as he stood warming his little legs in front of a crackling fire of oak logs which had just been lighted in the gloomy depths of the big fireplace. Although it was early in autumn, the evening air was chill.

Superintendent Merrington was walking up and down the room with rapid strides, occasionally glancing with some impatience at the clock which ticked with cheerful indifference on the mantelpiece. He was about to return to London, but was waiting for the return of Detective Caldew and Sergeant Lumbe. Caldew had cycled to Chidelham to see the Weynes, and Lumbe had been sent to investigate a telephoned report of a suspicious stranger seen at a hamlet called Tibblestone, some miles away.

Merrington's face wore a gloomy and dissatisfied expression. He had spent the afternoon in a whirlwind of energy in which he had done many things. He had explored the moat-house from top to bottom, squeezing his vast bulk into every obscure corner of the rambling old place. He had rowed round the moat in a small boat, scrutinizing the outside wall for footmarks. He had mustered the male servants, and superintended an organized beat of the grounds, the woods, and the neighbouring heights. He had interviewed the village station-master to ascertain if any stranger had arrived at Heredith the previous day, and had made similar inquiries by telephone at the adjoining stations. He had inspected the horses and vehicles at the village inn to see if they showed marks of recent usage, and he had peremptorily interrogated everybody he came across to find out whether any one unknown in the district had been seen skulking about the neighbourhood.

Merrington lacked the subtle and penetrative brain of a really great detective, but he possessed energy, initiative, and observation. These qualities had stood him in good stead before, but in this case they had brought nothing to light. The mystery and meaning of the terrible murder of the previous night were no nearer solution than when he had arrived to take up the case, ten hours before.

The most baffling aspect of the crime to him was the apparent lack of motive and the absence of any clue. In most murders there are generally some presumptive clues to guide those called upon to investigate the crime-such things as finger-prints or footprints, a previous threat or admission, an overheard conversation, a chance word, or a compromising letter. Such clues may not prove much in themselves, but they serve as finger-posts. Even the time, which in some cases of murder offers a valuable help to solution, in this case tended to shield the murderer. It seemed as though the murderer had chosen an unusual time and unusual conditions to shield his ident.i.ty more thoroughly and make discovery impossible.

The case was full of sinister possibilities and perplexities. It bore the stamp of deep premeditation and calculated skill. As the crime was apparently motiveless, it was certain that the motive was deep and carefully hidden. The only definite conclusion that Merrington had reached was that the murderer would have to be sought further afield, probably in London, where the dead girl had lived all her life. There seemed not the slightest reason to suspect anybody in the neighbourhood, as she was a stranger to the district, and knew n.o.body in it except Mrs. Weyne, who lived some miles away. It was unfortunate that her husband, who was the only person able to give any information about her earlier life, was too ill to be questioned.

On hearing Captain Stanhill's question, Merrington paused abruptly in his impatient pacing of the carpet, and glanced at him covertly from his deep-set little eyes. If he had consulted his own feelings he would have told the Chief Constable that it was not the time to air theories about the crime. But in his present position it behoved him to walk warily and not make an enemy of his colleague. If there was to be an outburst of public indignation because the murderer in this case had not been immediately discovered and brought to justice, it would be just as well if the county police shared the burden of responsibility. Merrington realized that he could best make Captain Stanhill feel his responsibility by taking him fully into his confidence. He was aware that he had practically ignored the Chief Constable in the course of the day's investigations, and it was desirable to remove any feeling that treatment may have caused. Superintendent Merrington had the greatest contempt for the county police, but there were times when it was judicious to dissemble that feeling. The present moment was one of them.

Captain Stanhill, on his part, cherished no animosity against his companion for his cavalier treatment of him. He realized his own inexperience in crime detection, and had been quite willing that Superintendent Merrington should take the lead in the investigations, which he had a.s.sisted to the best of his ability. He thought Merrington rather an unpleasant type, but he was overawed by his great reputation as a detective, and impressed by his energy and ma.s.sive self-confidence. The Chief Constable had not a.s.serted his own official position, because he was aware that he was unable to give competent help in such a baffling case. He was, above all things, anxious that the murderer of Violet Heredith should be captured and brought to justice as speedily as possible, and he had no thought of his personal dignity so long as that end was achieved.

The abstract ideal of human justice is supposed to be based on the threefold aims of punishment, prevention, and reformation, but the heart of the average man, when confronted by grevious wrong, is swayed by no higher impulse than immediate retribution on the wrongdoer. Captain Stanhill was an average man, and his feelings, harrowed by the spectacle of the bleeding corpse of the young wife, and the pitiful condition to which her murder had reduced her young husband, clamoured for retribution, swift, complete, and implacable, on the being who had committed this horrible crime. And he hoped that the famous detective would be able to a.s.sure him that his desire was likely to have a speedy attainment. That was why he asked Merrington whether he had formed any theory about the crime.

"It would be too much to say that I have formed a theory," replied Merrington, in response to Captain Stanhill's question. "It is necessary to have clues for the formation of a theory, and in this case we are faced with a complete absence of clues."

"Do you not think that the trinket found by Detective Caldew in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom has some bearing on the murder?" said Captain Stanhill.

"I attach no importance to it. There were a number of persons in the bedroom after the murder was committed, and any of them might have dropped the ornament. Or it may have been lost there days before by a servant, and escaped notice."

"But it was picked up again during Caldew's absence from the room. Do you not regard that as suspicious? Detective Caldew, when he was relating the incident to us this morning, seemed to think that the trinket belonged to the murderer, who took the risk of returning to the room to recover it for fear it might form a clue leading to discovery."

"Caldew reads too much into his discovery," replied Merrington, with an indulgent smile. "Like all young detectives, he is inclined to attach undue importance to small points. As I told him, I cannot imagine a murderer taking such a desperate risk as to return to the spot where he had killed his victim, in order to search for a trinket he had dropped. Caldew may have concealed the brooch so effectually in the thick folds of the velvet carpet that he could not find it again when he looked for it on his return to the room. That explanation strikes me as probable as his own theory of a mysterious midnight intruder returning to search for it while he was out of the room. The trinket may have some connection with the crime, or it may not, but as I have not seen it I prefer to leave it out of my calculation altogether. This case is going to be difficult enough to solve without chasing chimeras. But to return to your question. Although I have not actually formed a theory, my preliminary investigations of the circ.u.mstances have led me to arrive at certain conclusions and to exclude possibilities I was at first inclined to adopt. I will go over the case in detail, and then you will see for yourself the conclusions I have formed, and understand how I have arrived at them.

"In the first place, the greatest problem of this murder is the apparent lack of motive. There seems to be no reason why this young lady should have been killed. She had only recently been married, and, apparently, married happily, to a wealthy young man of good family, who was very much in love with her. It is obvious that money difficulties have nothing to do with the crime. Her husband is the only son of a wealthy father, and he is able to give his wife everything that a woman needs for her happiness and comfort. She is cherished, petted, and loved, and has a beautiful home. Who, therefore, had an object in putting an end to this young woman's life in her own home, in circ.u.mstances and conditions attended with the utmost possibility of discovery and capture? The perpetrator of the deed must have acted from some very strong motive or impulse to venture into a country-house full of people, at a time when everybody was indoors, in order to kill his victim.

"In a seemingly purposeless murder like this, a certain amount of suspicion gathers round the other members of the household. Human nature being what it is, one should never take anything for granted, but should always be on the watch for hidden motives. But in this case the members of the household, with the exception of Miss Heredith, were downstairs in the dining-room at the time the murder was committed. Miss Heredith left the room a few minutes before the shot was heard. You will recall that she volunteered that statement to us this morning. It occurred to me at the time that that may have been bluff to put us off the scent. Clever criminals often do that kind of thing. My suspicions against her were strengthened by the additional fact that Miss Heredith did not like her nephew's wife. She masked the fact beneath a well-bred semblance of grief and horror, but it was plain as a pikestaff to me. But, after thinking over all the circ.u.mstances, I came to the conclusion that she had nothing whatever to do with it."

"Such a possibility is inconceivable," exclaimed Captain Stanhill. "A lady like Miss Heredith would never commit murder."

"It was not for that reason that I excluded her from suspicion," replied Merrington drily. "The points against her were really very damaging. She was out of the dining-room when the scream was heard, and when the others rushed out of the dining-room on hearing the shot, the first thing they saw was Miss Heredith descending the staircase of the wing in which her nephew's wife had been murdered. Fortunately for Miss Heredith, she was almost at the bottom of the staircase when she was seen. The guests streamed out of the dining-room directly the shot was heard, therefore it is impossible that Miss Heredith could have shot Violet Heredith and then reached the bottom of the stairs so quickly. She is able to establish an alibi of time, by, perhaps, half a minute.

"As all the members of the house party were in the dining-room at the time, it is clear that they had nothing to do with the actual commission of the crime. The next thing is the servants, and they also can be excluded from suspicion. When we examined them this morning they were all able to prove, more or less conclusively, that they were engaged in their various duties at the time the murder was committed. The point is that not one of them was upstairs in the left wing of the house when Mrs. Heredith was shot.

"My original impression that the murder was not committed by a native of the district has been deepened by our afternoon's investigations. Where, then, are we to look for the murderer? To answer that question, in part, let us first consider how the murder was committed, and try and reconstruct the circ.u.mstances in which the murderer must have entered and left the house.

"Caldew thinks that the murderer entered the house by scaling the bedroom window, and made his exit by the same means. He bases that view on Miss Heredith's belief that the window was closed when she was in the bedroom before dinner. After the murder was committed the window was found open. But Miss Heredith's statement about the closed window does not amount to very much. She does not actually know whether the window was open or shut, because the window curtains were completely drawn at the time she was in the room. Those curtains are so thick and heavy that they would keep out the air whether the window was open or shut, and account for the stuffy atmosphere in a room which had been occupied all day.

"I do not regard the open window as a clue one way or the other. The one thing we must not lose sight of is that n.o.body can say definitely when it was opened. It may have been opened by Mrs. Heredith herself before Miss Heredith came into the room, or the murderer may have flung it open and escaped from the room that way after committing the murder. Personally, I do not think that he did, but I am not prepared altogether to exclude the possibility of his having done so. But I am convinced that he did not enter the bedroom by scaling the outside wall and getting in through the window. In the first place, there are no marks of any kind on the window sill or the window catch. There is not very much one way or another in the absence of marks on the sill or even on the catch, supposing the window was locked. The murderer might have opened the catch from outside without leaving a mark-I have known the trick to be done-and he might have got into the room without leaving any marks on the sill, particularly if he wore rubber boots. But, what is far more important, there are no marks on the wall outside, or any disturbance or displacement of the Virginia creeper which covers a portion of the wall, to suggest that the murderer climbed up to the room that way. I think it is certain that if he had done so he would have left his marks on the one or the other. The wall is of a soft old brickwork which would scratch and show marks plainly, and the Virginia creeper would break away. In any case, as I said this morning, it would barely sustain the weight of a boy, or a very slight girl. Finally, there are no marks of footsteps approaching the wall in the garden outside.

"The question of entry is naturally of great importance, and that was why I questioned the butler this morning whether the blinds were drawn in the dining-room last night. At that time, before I had had an opportunity of making my subsequent investigations, I deemed it possible that the murderer might have entered from outside by the window. In that case he would have had to pa.s.s the dining-room windows to reach the bedroom window, and might have been seen by one of the guests in the dining-room. It would be dark at the time, but last night was a very clear one, and his form might have been discerned flitting past the dining-room windows. But the absence of footprints in the gravel, and more particularly, in the soft yielding earth beneath the bedroom window, is conclusive proof to me that he did not get into the room that way.

"Did he escape by the window? That question is more difficult to answer. It is quite possible that it might have been done without injury, but it is a desperate feat to leap from an upstairs window in the dark. The murderer was in desperate straits, and for that reason we must not rule out the possibility that he did so. But if the leap was made through the window, my argument about the absence of footprints in the soft garden soil underneath the window comes in with additional force. A person leaping from such a height, even in stocking feet or rubber boots, would be certain to leave the impress of the drop, in footmarks or heelmarks, in the soil where he landed.

"Caldew's princ.i.p.al reason for believing that the murderer escaped by the window was based on the point that there was no other avenue of escape possible. We can only speculate as to what happened in the bedroom immediately before the murder was committed, but Caldew's theory is that Mrs. Heredith saw the murderer approaching her, and screamed for help. That scream hurried the murderer's movements. The scream was sure to arouse the household, and it left the murderer with the smallest possible margin of time in which to shoot Mrs. Heredith and make escape by the window. An attempt to escape down the front staircase meant running into the arms of the inmates of the dining-room rushing upstairs. The only other exit from that wing of the house was the disused back staircase, and that was found locked when it was searched after the murder. Therefore, according to Caldew, the murderer escaped by the window because there was no other way out.