5.18 (say) Miss Trevert comes into the lounge hall and gives the alarm.

"Now, sir," said Mr. Manderton briskly, "I should like to ask you one or two further questions. Firstly, how long were you out on your stroll in the dark?"

"I should think about two or three minutes."

"That is to say, if you left the house by the side door at 5.10, you were back in the house by 5.13."

"Yes, that would be right," Robin agreed.

"And what did you do when you came in?"

"I went up to my room to fetch a letter for the post."

"Miss Trevert heard the shot fired at 5.15. Where were you at that time?"

"In my bedroom, I should say. I was there for a few minutes as I had to write a cheque...."

"And where is your bedroom?"

"In the other wing above the billiard-room."

"Hm! A pistol shot makes a great deal of noise. It seems strange that n.o.body in the house should have heard it."

Here Bude interposed.

"Mr. Parrish, sir, was very particular about noise. He had the library door and the door leading from the front hall to the library corridor specially felted so that he should not hear any sounds from the house when he was working in the library. That library wing was absolutely shut off from the rest of the house. It was always uncommon quiet...."

But the detective, ignoring him, turned to Robin again.

"I have been round the house," he said. "It does not seem to me it ought to take you three or even two minutes to walk from the side door to the front door. I should say it would be a matter of about thirty seconds!"

"Excuse me," Robin answered quickly, "I didn't say I went straight from the side to the front door. I went through the gardens following the path that leads to the main drive. There I turned and came back to the front door."

"And you a.s.sert that you heard nothing?"

"I heard nothing."

"Neither the 'loud voices' which the butler heard within two minutes of your leaving the house nor the shot fired five minutes later?"

"I heard nothing."

Mr. Manderton examined the toes of his boots carefully.

"You heard nothing!" he repeated.

The door opened suddenly and Dr. Romain appeared. With him was the village pract.i.tioner and Inspector Humphries.

Dr. Redstone carried in his hand a little pad of cotton wool. He bore it over to the fireplace and unwrapping the lint showed a twisted fragment of lead lying on the bloodstained dressing.

"Straight through the heart and lodged in the spine," he said. "Death was absolutely instantaneous."

The detective picked up the bullet and scrutinized it closely.

"Browning pistol ammunition," observed Humphries; "it fits the gun he used. There's half a dozen spare rounds in one of the drawers of his dressing-room upstairs."

Mr. Manderton drew Inspector Humphries and Dr. Redstone into a corner of the room where they conversed in undertones. Bude and Jay had vanished.

Dr. Romain turned to Robin Greve, who stood lost in a reverie, staring into the fire.

"A clear case of suicide," he said. "The medical evidence is conclusive on that point. A most amazing affair. I can't conceive what drove him to it. Why _did_ he do it?"

"Ah! why?" said Robin.

CHAPTER X

A SMOKING CHIMNEY

A Red sun glowed dully through a thin mist when, on the following morning, Robin Greve emerged from the side door into the gardens of Harkings. It was a still, mild day. Moisture from the night's rain yet hung translucent on the black limbs of the bare trees and glistened like diamonds on the closely cropped turf of the lawn. In the air was a pleasant smell of damp earth.

Robin paused an instant outside the door in the library corridor and inhaled the morning air greedily. He had spent a restless, fitful night.

His sleep had been haunted by the riddle which, since the previous evening, had cast its shadow over the pleasant house. The mystery of Hartley Parrish's death obsessed him. If it was suicide,--and the doctors were both positive on the point--the motive eluded him utterly.

His mind, trained to logical processes of reasoning by his practice of the law, baulked at the theory. When he thought of Hartley Parrish as he had seen him at luncheon on the day before, striding with his quick, vigorous step into the room, boyishly curious to know what the _chef_ was giving them to eat, devouring his lunch with obvious animal enjoyment, brimful of energy, dominating the table with his forceful, eager personality....

The sound of voices in the library broke in upon his thoughts. Robin raised his head and listened. Some one appeared to be talking in a loud voice ... no, not talking ... rather declaiming.

Stepping quietly on the hard gravel path, Robin turned the corner of the house and came into view of the library window. The window-pane gaped, shattered where Horace Trevert had broken the gla.s.s on the previous evening when effecting an entrance into the room. Framed in the ragged outline of the splintered gla.s.s, bulked the large form of Sergeant Harris. He stood half turned from the window so as to catch the light on a copy of _The Times_ which he held in his red and freckled hands. He was reading aloud in stentorian tones from a leading article.

"While this country," he bawled sonorously, "cannot ... in h'our belief ... hevade ... er ... responsibility ... er ... h'm disquieting sit.w.a.tion ..."

"Dear me!" thought Robin to himself, "what a very extraordinary morning pursuit for our police!"

Suddenly the reading was interrupted.

Robin heard the library door open. Then Manderton's voice cried:

"That'll do, thank you, Sergeant!"

"Did you 'ear me, sir?" asked the sergeant, who seemed very much relieved to be quit of his task.

"Not a word!" was the reply. "But we'll try with the library door open!

I'll go back to the hall and you start again!"

A thoughtful look on his face, Robin turned quickly and, hurrying round the side of the house, entered by the front door. Standing by the door leading to the library corridor he found Manderton.

The detective did not seem particularly glad to see him.