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Page 83
"Surely it is obvious?" I cried. "A cloud of apprehension had settled
on the house last night, Harley, which was like the darkness of Egypt.
The poor girl was afraid to go to bed. She was probably sitting up
reading."
"Hm," said Harley, drumming his feet upon the carpet. "Of course you
realize that there is one person in Cray's Folly who holds the clue to
the heart of the mystery?"
"Madame de St�mer?"
He nodded grimly.
"When the rifle cracked out, Knox, she knew! Remember, no one had told
her the truth. Yet can you doubt that she knows?"
"I don't doubt it."
"Neither do I." He clenched his teeth tightly and beat his fists upon
the coverlet. "I was dreading that our friend the Inspector would ask a
question which to my mind was very obvious."
"You mean?--"
"Well, what investigator whose skull contained anything more useful
than bubbles would have failed to ask if Colonel Menendez had an
enemy in the neighbourhood?"
"No one," I admitted; "but I fear the poor man is sadly out of his
depth."
"He is wading hopelessly, Knox, but even he cannot fail to learn about
Camber to-morrow."
He stared at me in a curiously significant manner.
"Do you mean, Harley," I began, "that you really think----"
"My dear Knox," he interrupted, "forgetting, if you like, all that
preceded the tragedy, with what facts are we left? That Colonel
Menendez, at the moment when the bullet entered his brain, must have
been standing facing directly toward the Guest House. Now, you have
seen the direction of the wound?"
"He was shot squarely between the eyes. A piece of wonderful
marksmanship."
"Quite," Harley nodded his head. "But the bullet came out just at the
vertex of the spine."
He paused, as if waiting for some comment, and:
"You mean that the shot came from above?" I said, slowly.
"Obviously it came from above, Knox. Keep these two points in your
mind, and then consider the fact that someone lighted a lamp in the
Guest House only a few moments after the shot had been fired."
"I remember. I saw it."
"So did I," said Harley, grimly, "and I saw something else."
"What was that?"
"When you went off to summon assistance I ran across the lawn,
scrambled through the bushes, and succeeded in climbing down into the
little gully in which the stream runs, and up on the other side. I had
proceeded practically in a straight line from the sun-dial, and do you
know where I found myself?"
"I can guess," I replied.
"Of course you can. You have visited the place. I came out immediately
beside a little hut, Knox, which stands at the end of the garden of the
Guest House. Ahead of me, visible through a tangle of bushes in the
neglected garden, a lamp was burning. I crept cautiously forward, and
presently obtained a view of the interior of a kitchen. Just as I
arrived at this point of vantage the lamp was extinguished, but not
before I had had a glimpse of the only occupant of the room--the man
who had extinguished the lamp."
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