"No, he isn't," I said. "I've just met him going down the road."
"Well, I didn't hear him leave. He can't have stayed more than a couple of minutes. The mistress isn't back from town yet."
I nodded absentmindedly. Mary beat a retreat to the kitchen quarters and I went down the passage and opened the study door.
After the dusk of the passage, the evening sunshine that was pouring into the room made my eyes blink. I took a step or two across the floor and then stopped dead.
For a moment I could hardly take in the meaning of the scene before me.
Colonel Protheroe was lying sprawled across my writing table in a horrible unnatural position. There was a pool of some dark fluid on the desk by his head, and it was slowly dripping on to the floor with a horrible drip, drip, drip.
I pulled myself together and went across to him. His skin was cold to the touch. The hand that I raised fell back lifeless. The man was dead — shot through the head.
I went to the door and called Mary. When she came I ordered her to run as fast as she could and fetch Dr. Haydock, who lives just at the corner of the road. I told her there had been an accident.
Then I went back and closed the door to await the doctor's coming.
Fortunately, Mary found him at home. Haydock is a good fellow, a big, fine, strapping man with an honest, rugged face.
His eyebrows went up when I pointed silently across the room. But, like a true doctor, he showed no signs of emotion. He bent over the dead man, examining him rapidly. Then he straightened himself and looked across at me.
"Well?" I asked.
"He's dead right enough — been dead half an hour, I should say."
"Suicide?"
"Out of the question, man. Look at the position of the wound. Besides, if he shot himself, where's the weapon?"
True enough, there was no sign of any such thing.
"We'd better not mess around with anything," said Haydock. "I'd better ring up the police."
He picked up the receiver and spoke into it. He gave the facts as curtly as possible and then replaced the telephone and came across to where I was sitting.
"This is a rotten business. How did you come to find him?"
I explained. "Is — is it murder?" I asked rather faintly.
"Looks like it. Mean to say, what else can it be? Extraordinary business. Wonder who had a down on the poor old fellow. Of course I know he wasn't popular, but one isn't often murdered for that reason — worse luck."
"There's one rather curious thing," I said. "I was telephoned for this afternoon to go to a dying parishioner. When I got there every one was very surprised to see me. The sick man was very much better than he had been for some days, and his wife flatly denied telephoning for me at all."
Haydock drew his brows together.
"That's suggestive — very. You were being got out of the way. Where's your wife?"
"Gone up to London for the day."
"And the maid?"
"In the kitchen — right at the other side of the house."
"Where she wouldn't be likely to hear anything that went on in here. It's a nasty business. Who knew that Protheroe was coming here this evening?"
"He referred to the fact this morning in the village street at the top of his voice as usual."
"Meaning that the whole village knew it? Which they always do in any case. Know of any one who had a grudge against him? "
The thought of Lawrence Redding's white face and staring eyes came to my mind. I was spared answering by a noise of shuffling feet in the passage outside.
"The police," said my friend, and rose to his feet.
Our police force were represented by Constable Hurst, looking very important but slightly worried.
"Good_evening, gentlemen," he greeted us. "The Inspector will be here any minute. In the meantime I'll follow out his instructions. I understand Colonel Protheroe's been found shot — in the Vicarage."
He paused and directed a look of cold suspicion at me, which I tried to meet with a suitable bearing of conscious innocence.
He moved over to the writing table and announced:
"Nothing to be touched until the Inspector comes."
For the convenience of my readers I append a sketch plan of the room.
PLAN B
He got out his notebook, moistened his pencil and looked expectantly at both of us.
I repeated my story of discovering the body. When he had got it all down, which took some time, he turned to the doctor.
"In your opinion, Dr. Haydock, what was the cause of death?"
"Shot through the head at close quarters."
"And the weapon?"
"I can't say with certainty until we get the bullet out. But I should say in all probability the bullet was fired from a pistol of small calibre — say a Mauser .25."
I started, remembering our conversation of the night before, and Lawrence Redding's admission. The police constable brought his cold, fish_like eye round on me.
"Did you speak, sir?"
I shook my head. Whatever suspicions I might have, they were no more than suspicions, and as such to be kept to myself.
"When, in your opinion, did the tragedy occur?"
The doctor hesitated for a minute before he answered. Then he said:
"The man has been dead just over half an hour, I should say. Certainly not longer."
Hurst turned to me. "Did the girl hear anything?"
"As far as I know she heard nothing," I said. "But you bad better ask her."
But at this moment Inspector Slack arrived, having come by car from Much Benham, two miles away.
All that I can say of Inspector Slack is that never did a man more determinedly strive to contradict his name. He was a dark man, restless and energetic in manner, with black eyes that snapped ceaselessly. His manner was rude and overbearing in the extreme.
He acknowledged our greetings with a curt nod, seized his subordinate's notebook, perused it, exchanged a few curt words with him in an undertone, then strode over to the body.
"Everything's been messed up and pulled about, I suppose," he said.
"I've touched nothing," said Haydock.
"No more have I," I said.
The Inspector busied himself for some time peering at the things on the table and examining the pool of blood.
"Ah!" he said in a tone of triumph. "Here's what we want. Clock overturned when he fell forward. That'll give us the time of the crime. Twenty_two minutes past six. What time did you say death occurred, doctor?"
"I said about half an hour, but —"
The Inspector consulted his watch.
"Five minutes past seven. I got word about ten minutes ago, at five minutes to seven. Discovery of the body was at about a quarter to seven. I understand you were fetched immediately. Say you examined it at ten minutes to — Why, that brings it to the identical second almost!"
"I don't guarantee the time absolutely," said Haydock. "That is an approximate estimate."
"Good enough, sir, good enough."
I had been trying to get a word in.
"About that clock —"
"If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll ask you any questions I want to know. Time's short. What I want is absolute silence."
"Yes, but I'd like to tell you —"
"Absolute silence," said the Inspector, glaring at me ferociously. I gave him what he asked for.
He was still peering about the writing table.
"What was he sitting here for," he grunted. "Did he want to write a note — Hallo — what's this?"
He held up a piece of note_paper triumphantly. So pleased was he with his find that he permitted us to come to his side and examine it with him.
It was a piece of Vicarage note_paper, and it was headed at the top 6.20.
"DEAR CLEMENT" — it began — "Sorry I cannot wait any longer, but I must . . ."
Here the writing tailed off in a scrawl
"Plain as a pikestaff," said Inspector Slack triumphantly. "He sits down here to write this, an enemy comes softly in through the window and shoots him as he writes. What more do you want?"
"I'd just like to say —" I began.
"Out of the way, if you please, sir. I want to see if there are footprints."
He went down on his hands and knees, moving towards the open window.
"I think you ought to know —" I said obstinately.
The Inspector rose. He spoke without heat, but firmly.
"We'll go into all that later. I'd be obliged if you gentlemen will clear out of here. Right out, if you please."
We permitted ourselves to be shooed out like children.
Hours seemed to have passed — yet it was only a quarter_past seven.
"Well," said Haydock. "That's that. When that conceited ass wants me, you can send him over to the surgery. So long."
"The mistress is back," said Mary, making a brief appearance from the kitchen. Her eyes were round and agog with excitement. "Come in about five minutes ago."
I found Griselda in the drawing_room. She looked frightened, but excited.
I told her everything and she listened attentively.
"The letter is headed 6.20," I ended. "And the clock fell over and has stopped at 6.22."
"Yes," said Griselda. "But that clock, didn't you tell him that it was always kept a quarter of an hour fast?"
"No," I said. "I didn't. He wouldn't let me. I tried my best." Griselda was frowning in a puzzled manner.
"But, Len," she said, "that makes the whole thing perfectly extraordinary. Because when that clock said twenty past six it was really only five minutes past, and at five minutes past I don't suppose Colonel Protheroe had even arrived at the house."
Chapter VI
We puzzled over the business of the clock for some time, but we could make nothing of it. Griselda said I ought to make another effort to tell Inspector Slack about it, but on that point I was feeling what I can only describe as "mulish."
Inspector Slack had been abominably and most unnecessarily rude. I was looking forward to a moment when I could produce my valuable contribution and effect his discomfiture. I would then say in a tone of mild reproach:
"If you had only listened to me, Inspector Slack —"
I expected that he would at least speak to me before he left the house, but to our surprise we learned from Mary that he had departed, having locked up the study door and issued orders that no one was to attempt to enter the room.
Griselda suggested going up to Old Hall.
"It will be so awful for Anne Protheroe — with the police and everything," she said. "Perhaps I might be able to do something for her."
I cordially approved of this plan, and Griselda set off with instructions that she was to telephone to me if she thought that I could be of any use or comfort to either of the ladies.
I now proceeded to ring up the Sunday School teachers, who were coming at 7.45 for their weekly preparation class. I thought that under the circumstances it would be better to put them off.
Dennis was the next person to arrive on the scene, having just returned from a tennis party. The fact that murder had taken place at the Vicarage seemed to afford him acute satisfaction.
"Fancy being right on the spot in a murder case," he exclaimed. "I've always wanted to be right in the midst of one. Why have the police locked up the study? Wouldn't one of the other door keys fit it?"
I refused to allow anything of the sort to be attempted. Dennis gave in with a bad grace. After extracting every possible detail from me he went out into the garden to look for footprints, remarking cheerfully that it was lucky it was only old Protheroe, whom every one disliked.
His cheerful callousness rather grated on me, but I reflected that I was perhaps being hard on the boy. At Dennis's age a detective story is one of the best things in life, and to find a real detective story, complete with corpse, waiting on one's own front doorstep, so to speak, is bound to send a healthy_minded boy into the seventh heaven of enjoyment. Death means very little to a boy of sixteen.
Griselda came back in about an hour's time. She had seen Anne Protheroe, having arrived just after the Inspector had broken the news to her.
On hearing that Mrs. Protheroe had last seen her husband in the village about a quarter to six, and that she had no light of any kind to throw upon the matter, he had taken his departure, explaining that he would return on the morrow for a fuller interview.
"He was quite decent in his way," said Griselda grudgingly.
"How did Mrs. Protheroe take it?" I asked.
"Well — she was very quiet — but then she always is."
"Yes," I said. "I can't imagine Anne Protheroe going into hysterics."
"Of course it was a great shock. You could see that. She thanked me for coming and said she was very grateful but that there was nothing I could do."
"What about Lettice?"
"She was out playing tennis somewhere. She hadn't got home yet." There was a pause, and then Griselda said:
"You know, Len, she was really very queer — very queer indeed."
"The shock," I suggested.
"Yes — I suppose so. And yet —" Griselda furrowed her brows perplexedly. "It wasn't like that, somehow. She didn't seem so much bowled over as — well — terrified."
"Terrified?"
"Yes — not showing it, you know. At least not meaning to show it. But a queer, watchful look in her eyes. I wonder if she has a sort of idea who did kill him. She asked again and again if any one were suspected."
"Did she?" I said thoughtfully.
"Yes. Of course Anne's got marvellous self_control, but one could see that she was terribly upset. More so than I would have thought, for after all it wasn't as though she were so devoted to him. I should have said she rather disliked him, if anything."
"Death alters one's feelings sometimes," I said.
"Yes, I suppose so."
Dennis came in and was full of excitement over a footprint he had found in one of the flower beds. He was sure that the police had overlooked it and that it would turn out to be the turning point of the mystery.
