"Exactly!"
"Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he
must 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 the
window! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never
occurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could
not let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible."
"Horrible enough!" said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and
the terrible marks which surrounded it. "I've never seen such
injuries since the Birlstone railway smash."
"But, I say," remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic
common sense was still pondering the open window. "It's all very well
your saying 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 it
until they went. Then I wound it up myself."
"Then it comes to this," said the sergeant: "If anyone came from
outside--if they did--they must have got in across the bridge before
six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the
room after eleven."
"That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last
thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That
brought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got
away through 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 the
floor. The initials V. V. and under them the number 341 were rudely
scrawled in ink upon it.
"What's this?" he asked, holding it up.
Barker looked at it with curiosity. "I never noticed it before," he
said. "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
of the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker
pointed to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.
"Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday," he said. "I saw
him myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above
it. That accounts for the hammer."
"We'd best put it back on the rug where we found it," said the
sergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. "It will
want the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing.
It will be a London job before it is finished." He raised the hand
lamp and walked slowly round the room. "Hullo!" he cried, excitedly,
drawing the window curtain to one side. "What o'clock were those
curtains drawn?"
"When the lamps were lit," said the butler. "It would be shortly
after four."
"Someone had been hiding here, sure enough." He held down the light,
and the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner. "I'm
bound to say this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker. It looks as if
the man got into the house after four when the curtains were drawn
and before six when the bridge was raised. He slipped into this room,
because it was the first that he saw. There was no other place where
he could hide, so he popped in behind this curtain. That all seems
clear enough. It is likely that his main idea was to burgle the
house; but Mr. Douglas chanced to come upon him, so he murdered him
and escaped."
"That's how I read it," said Barker. "But, I say, aren't we wasting
precious time? Couldn't we start out and scour the country before the
fellow gets away?"
The sergeant considered for a moment.
"There are no trains before six in the morning; so he can't get away
by rail. If he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it's odds
that someone will notice him. Anyhow, I can't leave here myself until
I am relieved. But I think none of you should go until we see more
clearly how we all stand."
The doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.
"What's this mark?" he asked. "Could this have any connection with
the crime?"
The dead man's right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown, and
exposed as high as the elbow. About halfway up the forearm was a
curious brown design, a triangle inside a circle, standing out in
vivid relief upon the lard-coloured skin.
"It's not tattooed," said the doctor, peering through his glasses. "I
never saw anything like it. The man has been branded at some time as
they brand cattle. What is the meaning of this?"
"I don't profess to know the meaning of it," said Cecil Barker; "but
I have seen the mark on Douglas many times this last ten years."
"And so have I," said the butler. "Many a time when the master has
rolled up his sleeves I have noticed that very mark. I've often
wondered what it could be."
"Then it has nothing to do with the crime, anyhow," said the
sergeant. "But it's a rum thing all the same. Everything about this
case is rum. Well, what is it now?"
The butler had given an exclamation of astonishment and was pointing
at the dead man's outstretched hand.
"They've taken his wedding ring!" he gasped.
"What!"
"Yes, indeed. Master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the
little finger of his left hand. That ring with the rough nugget on it
was above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger. There's
the nugget and there's the snake, but the wedding ring is gone."
"He's right," said Barker.
"Do you tell me," said the sergeant, "that the wedding ring was below
the other?"
"Always!"
"Then the murderer, or whoever it was, first took off this ring you
call the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the
nugget ring back again."
"That is so!"
The worthy country policeman shook his head. "Seems to me the sooner
we get London on to this case the better," said he. "White Mason is a
smart man. No local job has ever been too much for White Mason. It
won't be long now before he is here to help us. But I expect we'll
have to look to London before we are through. Anyhow, I'm not ashamed
to say that it is a deal too thick for the likes of me."
CHAPTER IV
Darkness
At three in the morning the chief Sussex detective, obeying the
urgent call from Sergeant Wilson of Birlstone, arrived from
headquarters in a light dog-cart behind a breathless trotter. By the
five-forty train in the morning he had sent his message to Scotland
Yard, and he was at the Birlstone station at twelve o'clock to
welcome us. White Mason was a quiet, comfortable-looking person in a
loose tweed suit, with a clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish body,
and powerful bandy legs adorned with gaiters, looking like a small
farmer, a retired gamekeeper, or anything upon earth except a very
favourable specimen of the provincial criminal officer.
"A real downright snorter, Mr. MacDonald!" he kept repeating. "We'll
have the pressmen down like flies when they understand it. I'm hoping
we will get our work done before they get poking their noses into it
and messing up all the trails. There has been nothing like this that
I can remember. There are some bits that will come home to you, Mr.
Holmes, or I am mistaken. And you also, Dr. Watson; for the medicos
will have a word to say before we finish. Your room is at the
Westville Arms. There's no other place; but I hear that it is clean
and good. The man will carry your bags. This way, gentlemen, if you
please."
He was a very bustling and genial person, this Sussex detective. In
ten minutes we had all found our quarters. In ten more we were seated
in the parlour of the inn and being treated to a rapid sketch of
those events which have been outlined in the previous chapter.
MacDonald made an occasional note, while Holmes sat absorbed, with
the expression of surprised and reverent admiration with which the
botanist surveys the rare and precious bloom.
"Remarkable!" he said, when the story was unfolded, "most remarkable!
I can hardly recall any case where the features have been more
peculiar."
"I thought you would say so, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason in great
delight. "We're well up with the times in Sussex. I've told you now
how matters were, up to the time when I took over from Sergeant
Wilson between three and four this morning. My word! I made the old
mare go! But I need not have been in such a hurry, as it turned out;
for there was nothing immediate that I could do. Sergeant Wilson had
all the facts. I checked them and considered them and maybe added a
few of my own."
"What were they?" asked Holmes eagerly.
"Well, I first had the hammer examined. There was Dr. Wood there to
help me. We found no signs of violence upon it. I was hoping that if
Mr. Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his
mark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat. But there was
no stain."
"That, of course, proves nothing at all," remarked Inspector
MacDonald. "There has been many a hammer murder and no trace on the
hammer."
"Quite so. It doesn't prove it wasn't used. But there might have been
stains, and that would have helped us. As a matter of fact there were
none. Then I examined the gun. They were buckshot cartridges, and, as
Sergeant Wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so
that, if you pulled on the hinder one, both barrels were discharged.
Whoever fixed that up had made up his mind that he was going to take
no chances of missing his man. The sawed gun was not more than two
foot long--one could carry it easily under one's coat. There was no
complete maker's name; but the printed letters P-E-N were on the
fluting between the barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut
off by the saw."
"A big P with a flourish above it, E and N smaller?" asked Holmes.
"Exactly."
"Pennsylvania Small Arms Company--well-known American firm," said
Holmes.
White Mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner
looks at the Harley Street specialist who by a word can solve the
difficulties that perplex him.
"That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. Wonderful!
Wonderful! Do you carry the names of all the gun makers in the world
in your memory?"
Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.
"No doubt it is an American shotgun," White Mason continued. "I seem
to have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts
of America. Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had
occurred to me. There is some evidence then, that this man who
entered the house and killed its master was an American."
MacDonald shook his head. "Man, you are surely travelling overfast,"
said he. "I have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in
the house at all."
"The open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of
boots in the corner, the gun!"
"Nothing there that could not have been arranged. Mr. Douglas was an
American, or had lived long in America. So had Mr. Barker. You don't
need to import an American from outside in order to account for
American doings."
"Ames, the butler--"
"What about him? Is he reliable?"
"Ten years with Sir Charles Chandos--as solid as a rock. He has been
with Douglas ever since he took the Manor House five years ago. He
has never seen a gun of this sort in the house."
"The gun was made to conceal. That's why the barrels were sawed. It
would fit into any box. How could he swear there was no such gun in
the house?"
"Well, anyhow, he had never seen one."
MacDonald shook his obstinate Scotch head. "I'm not convinced yet
that there was ever anyone in the house," said he. "I'm asking you to
conseedar" (his accent became more Aberdonian as he lost himself in
his argument) "I'm asking you to conseedar what it involves if you
