“Oh, yes. It would be. It was. Only a narrow look at the target possible. Hence the two shots. We are left with the fundamental question, who fired?” He swept the beam of the torch all round the floor of the little chamber.
“Plenty of dust, but it’s all mucked up,” Underwood grumbled. “I don’t believe you could get any sort of footprint anywhere.”
“No. You couldn’t. And, if you could, no proof when it was made. Baffling case. Disheartenin’ case. However.” The light was directed to the sides and the roof. From the rough wall by the side opposite to that from which they had entered he drew away two long glistening hairs.
“Golden, eh? “Underwood peered at them. “Good Lord, sir, Mrs. Burchard has golden hair.”
“Yes. That is so,” Reggie sighed.
“I’d never have believed it,” Underwood said slowly. “She looks such a child. She looks so good.”
“As you say,” Reggie murmured. “However.” Again he swept the torch round, and they searched everywhere. “Nothing else. That’s certain. Absolutely nothing else. Well, well.”
Underwood turned to the panel by which they had entered. “Oh, no. No.” Reggie stopped him. “Must be another way out.”
“Sort of trap - door in the floor.” Underwood pointed. “If you want that.” He tugged at it, and a black shaft in the wall opened.
“I don’t think so. No,” Reggie said. He went to the side opposite that by which they had entered - panelling with cross - bars against it. “Here you are. Same sort of dodge.” They slid back one of the bars and pulled the panelling down, to look out at the back of a picture. Sidling round it through the aperture, they found themselves in the gallery, and the picture which they saw was that of the blushing bride.
Reggie gave her a mournful smile. “Yes. That’s why your husband put you there,” he murmured. “Shove the panel up. Underwood. Ah, that boss is the fastening here. All right. Now we know how the smell of powder met the butler as he came upstairs. The fumes got out this way. And so did the shooter.” He gazed up at the picture. “Well, well. Not a good place for matrimony, Letley Hall. Innocent child bride murdered by means of the priest’s hole. Suggestin’ a method for murder of the bridegroom who wasn’t a child and wasn’t innocent. One thing leads to another. Well, well.” He contemplated Underwood with large, plaintive eyes. “Now we’ve got to tell the chief constable. The rest is his job.”
“Yes, it’s up to him, thank God,” said Underwood. “I don’t want it.”
They went downstairs to the telephone - box between the hall and the servant’s quarters, and on the way met Ann. She was in black; she moved slowly; her face was pale, and the more beautiful in its weariness. Her shadowed eyes gave Reggie a look of puzzled recognition. She said nothing; she passed on with a little smile, sad and grateful, and a bow.
Reggie rang up the police headquarters and was told that the chief constable was not there; the chief constable had started for Letley Hall.
“Well, well.” Reggie turned to Underwood. “He’s comin’ here. I wonder why that is. However. You’d better get some sleep, young fellow. Nothing more for you to do.”
While Underwood went to rest after his night’s watch, Reggie also abandoned the house. He wandered about the gravel space in the front, to the pines and cedars which shut it in, contemplating the broken window.
He was thus engaged when the chief constable’s car drove up. Quickly he returned to meet it. “Hallo! I didn’t expect to find you here, Mr. Fortune,” the chief constable greeted him. “Taking another look at the scene of the crime?”
“At the room. Yes. You’re making it crime? “
“I am. I’ve got some new stuff. That fellow Arnold has come in. Came in of himself, if you please. And he’s telling a queer story. Look here, we may as well talk outside here. I don’t want any chance of being overheard. It’s like this. Arnold turned up at my office this morning saying he’d read of Burchard’s death in the papers and he had some information. Well, of course, that means he knew he’d be under suspicion and he wanted to get his story in first. So I don’t say I believe a word of it, but it’s nasty, awkward stuff. The tale is that his conviction for theft was a put - up job between Burchard and this Mrs. Healy. He says they had been carrying on together before Burchard was married, and they knew he knew and were afraid he’d make a scandal of it. What it comes to is, he was trying to blackmail the pair of ‘em with the threat of telling Miss Ann Bracy they’d been living together. He wouldn’t own to that, of course, but I got it out pretty clear when I grilled him. His way of putting it is he was so shocked, if you please, at the two carrying on while Burchard was making up to this nice, innocent girl. He says he talked to ‘em both, and, the next thing he knew, was being charged with stealing Mrs. Healy’s rubies. He swears he never touched ‘em; Burchard and the Healy woman faked the charge. His lawyer told him it wouldn’t do him any good to bring out the scandal at his trial, because that would only have got him charged with blackmail as well as theft - and I don’t say he’s wrong there - so he took his sentence as a first offender. When he got out, he wanted to get a bit of his own back. He tried to see Mrs. Healy, and was turned away from her house in London. He came down here and lurked about, trying to catch Burchard and the young wife and have it all out. That’s what he was after yesterday. Well, you see, this tale does hang together, and it gives us a reason why Mrs. Healy blew in on the married pair, which was a bit of a puzzle.”
“Yes. As you say.” Reggie nodded. “Strikin’ explanation.”
“And there’s more to it.” The chief constable lowered his voice. “Arnold says that when the gamekeeper ran him out of the wood where they were shooting, he came round to the drive here to have another try. By his account, he was lurking somewhere under these trees. Where’s the window of the room Burchard was shot in? That’s it, yes; the end one in that wing with the broken pane. Well, Arnold says he saw Mrs. Healy in there with Burchard. All it meant to him at the time was that the Burchards had got in, so there’d be no more chance of catching them that night, and he went back to the pub where he was staying. That’s plausible, you see. It was when he read this morning of Burchard being found shot in that dressing - room he thought he ought to tell the police. Quite reasonable again; quite correct. But what do you think of it all?”
“Persuasive story. Attractive story,” Reggie said. “Some of it should be true. However.” He sighed. “Fundamental question. Could the man Arnold see who was in that room from anywhere here? Try everything. I’ll go up there, sit down and stand. You see if you can see me.” He made haste into the house.
When he came out again, the chief constable met him with a shake of the head. “I couldn’t see a sign of you, couldn’t see anybody was there at all. It’s impossible. Arnold was lying.”
“Yes. I think so. Even after dusk, with the room lit. Nobody would show up with this angle and that window. However. The man Arnold’s story remains interestin’.”
“I’m not satisfied, Mr. Fortune, I tell you frankly.” the chief constable frowned.
“My dear chap! Satisfied! Not so, but far otherwise.”
“I’m going to put this woman Healy through it,” the chief constable announced.
“Yes. Try everything,” said Reggie drearily.
As they went in, a small old car came rattling up the drive. “Hallo! That’s Oliver Maminot,” the chief constable remarked. “Chap who used to own the place, you know.”
“I did know - yes. Ancestral owner payin’ a visit of condolence to the widow.”
