We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollardedelms on each side of it. Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars,weather-stained and lichen-blotched, bearing upon their summitsa shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion ofCapus of Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive withsuch sward and oaks around it as one only sees in rural England,then a sudden turn, and the long, low Jacobean house of dingy,liver-coloured brick lay before us, with an old-fashioned gardenof cut yews on each side of it. As we approached it, there wasthe wooden drawbridge and the beautiful broad moat as still andluminous as quicksilver in the cold, winter sunshine.
Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuriesof births and of homecomings, of country dances and of themeetings of fox hunters. Strange that now in its old age this darkbusiness should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls!
And yet those strange, peaked roofs and quaint, overhung gableswere a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue. As I lookedat the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured,water-lapped front, I felt that no more fitting scene could be setfor such a tragedy.
“That’s the window,” said White Mason, “that one on theimmediate right of the drawbridge. It’s open just as it was foundlast night.”
“It looks rather narrow for a man to pass.”
“Well, it wasn’t a fat man, anyhow. We don’t need your deductions,Mr. Holmes, to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through allright.”
Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across. Thenhe examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.
“I’ve had a good look, Mr. Holmes,” said White Mason. “Thereis nothing there, no sign that anyone has landed—but why shouldhe leave any sign?”
“Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?”
“Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay.”
“How deep is it?”
“About two feet at each side and three in the middle.”
“So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned incrossing.”
“No, a child could not be drowned in it.”
We walked across the drawbridge, and were admitted by aquaint, gnarled, dried-up person, who was the butler, Ames. Thepoor old fellow was white and quivering from the shock. Thevillage sergeant, a tall, formal, melancholy man, still held his vigilin the room of Fate. The doctor had departed.
“Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson?” asked White Mason.
“No, sir.”
“Then you can go home. You’ve had enough. We can send foryou if we want you. The butler had better wait outside. Tell him towarn Mr. Cecil Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper that wemay want a word with them presently. Now, gentlemen, perhapsyou will allow me to give you the views I have formed first, andthen you will be able to arrive at your own.”
He impressed me, this country specialist. He had a solid grip offact and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take himsome way in his profession. Holmes listened to him intently, withno sign of that impatience which the official exponent too oftenproduced.
“Is it suicide, or is it murder—that’s our first question, gentlemen,is it not? If it were suicide, then we have to believe that this manbegan by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it; that he thencame down here in his dressing gown, trampled mud into a cornerbehind the curtain in order to give the idea someone had waitedfor him, opened the window, put blood on the—”
“We can surely dismiss that,” said MacDonald.
“So I think. Suicide is out of the question. Then a murder hasbeen done. What we have to determine is, whether it was done bysomeone outside or inside the house.”
“Well, let’s hear the argument.”
“There are considerable difficulties both ways, and yet one orthe other it must be. We will suppose first that some person orpersons inside the house did the crime. They got this man downhere at a time when everything was still and yet no one was asleep.
They then did the deed with the queerest and noisiest weapon inthe world so as to tell everyone what had happened—a weaponthat was never seen in the house before. That does not seem avery likely start, does it?”
“No, it does not.”
“Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given onlya minute at the most had passed before the whole household—notMr. Cecil Barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, butAmes and all of them were on the spot. Do you tell me that in thattime the guilty person managed to make footmarks in the corner,open the window, mark the sill with blood, take the wedding ringoff the dead man’s finger, and all the rest of it? It’s impossible!”
“You put it very clearly,” said Holmes. “I am inclined to agreewith you.”
“Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was doneby someone from outside. We are still faced with some bigdifficulties; but anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities. Theman got into the house between four-thirty and six; that is to say,between dusk and the time when the bridge was raised. There hadbeen some visitors, and the door was open; so there was nothing toprevent him. He may have been a common burglar, or he may havehad some private grudge against Mr. Douglas. Since Mr. Douglashas spent most of his life in America, and this shotgun seems to bean American weapon, it would seem that the private grudge is themore likely theory. He slipped into this room because it was thefirst he came to, and he hid behind the curtain. There he remaineduntil past eleven at night. At that time Mr. Douglas entered theroom. It was a short interview, if there were any interview at all;for Mrs. Douglas declares that her husband had not left her morethan a few minutes when she heard the shot.”
“The candle shows that,” said Holmes.
