Captain Trevelyan lay on the floor, face downwards. His arms sprawled widely. The room was in confusion—drawers of the bureau pulled out, papers lying about the floor. The window beside them was splintered where it had been forced near the lock. Beside Captain Trevelyan was a dark green baize tube about two inches in diameter.
Warren sprang forward. He knelt down by the prostrate figure.
One minute sufficed. He rose to his feet, his face pale.
‘He’s dead?’ asked Burnaby.
The doctor nodded.
Then he turned to Graves.
‘It’s for you to say what’s to be done. I can do nothing except examine the body and perhaps you’d rather I didn’t do that until the Inspector comes. I can tell you the cause of death now. Fracture of the base of the skull. And I think I can make a guess at the weapon.’
He indicated the green baize tube.
‘Trevelyan always had them along the bottom of the door—to keep the draught out,’ said Burnaby.
His voice was hoarse.
‘Yes—a very efficient form of sandbag.’
‘My God!’
‘But this here—’ the constable broke in, his wits arriving at the point slowly. ‘You mean—this here is murder.’
The policeman stepped to the table on which stood a telephone.
Major Burnaby approached the doctor.
‘Have you any idea,’ he said, breathing hard, ‘how long he’s been dead?’
‘About two hours, I should say, or possibly three. That’s a rough estimate.’
Burnaby passed his tongue over dry lips.
‘Would you say,’ he asked, ‘that he might have been killed at five twenty-five?’
The doctor looked at him curiously.
‘If I had to give a time definitely, that’s just about the time I would suggest.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Burnaby.
Warren stared at him.
The Major felt his way blindly to a chair, collapsed on to it and muttered to himself whilst a kind of staring terror overspread his face.
‘Five and twenty past five—Oh my God, then it was true after all.’
It was the morning after the tragedy, and two men were standing in the little study of Hazelmoor.
Inspector Narracott looked round him. A little frown appeared upon his forehead.
‘Ye-es,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Ye-es.’
Inspector Narracott was a very efficient officer. He had a quiet persistence, a logical mind and a keen attention to detail which brought him success where many another man might have failed.
He was a tall man with a quiet manner, rather far-away grey eyes, and a slow soft Devonshire voice.
Summoned from Exeter to take charge of the case, he had arrived on the first train that morning. The roads had been impassable for cars, even with chains, otherwise he would have arrived the night before. He was standing now in Captain Trevelyan’s study having just completed his examination of the room. With him was Sergeant Pollock of the Exhampton police.
‘Ye-es,’ said Inspector Narracott.
A ray of pale wintry sunshine came in through the window. Outside was the snowy landscape. There was a fence about a hundred yards from the window and beyond it the steep ascending slope of the snow-covered hillside.
Inspector Narracott bent once more over the body which had been left for his inspection. An athletic man himself, he recognized the athlete’s type, the broad shoulders, narrow flanks, and the good muscular development. The head was small and well set on the shoulders, and the pointed naval beard was carefully trimmed. Captain Trevelyan’s age, he had ascertained, was sixty, but he looked not much more than fifty-one or two.
‘Ah!’ said Sergeant Pollock.
The other turned on him.
‘What is your view of it?’
‘Well—’ Sergeant Pollock scratched his head. He was a cautious man, unwilling to advance further than necessary.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘as I see it, sir, I should say that the man came to the window, forced the lock, and started rifling the room. Captain Trevelyan, I suppose, must have been upstairs. Doubtless the burglar thought the house was empty—’
‘Where is Captain Trevelyan’s bedroom situated?’
‘Upstairs, sir. Over this room.’
‘At the present time of year it is dark at four o’clock. If Captain Trevelyan was up in his bedroom the electric light would have been on, the burglar would have seen it as he approached this window.’
‘You mean he’d have waited.’
‘No man in his senses would break into a house with a light in it. If anyone forced this window—he did it because he thought the house was empty.’
Sergeant Pollock scratched his head.
‘Seems a bit odd, I admit. But there it is.’
‘We’ll let it pass for the moment. Go on.’
‘Well, suppose the Captain hears a noise downstairs. He comes down to investigate. The burglar hears him coming. He snatches up that bolster arrangement, gets behind the door, and as the Captain enters the room strikes him down from behind.’
Inspector Narracott nodded.
‘Yes, that’s true enough. He was struck down when he was facing the window. But all the same, Pollock, I don’t like it.’
‘No, sir?’
‘No, as I say, I don’t believe in houses that are broken into at five o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘We-ell, he may have thought it a good opportunity—’
‘It is not a question of opportunity—slipping in because he found a window unlatched. It was deliberate house-breaking—look at the confusion everywhere—what would a burglar go for first? The pantry where the silver is kept.’
‘That’s true enough,’ admitted the Sergeant.
‘And this confusion—this chaos,’ continued Narracott, ‘these drawers pulled out and their contents scattered. Pah! It’s bunkum.’
‘Bunkum?’
‘Look at the window, Sergeant. That window was not locked and forced open! It was merely shut and then splintered from the outside to give the appearance of forcing.’
Pollock examined the latch of the window closely, uttering an ejaculation to himself as he did so.
‘You are right, sir,’ he said with respect in his voice. ‘Who’d have thought of that now!’
‘Someone who wishes to throw dust in our eyes—and hasn’t succeeded.’
Sergeant Pollock was grateful for the ‘our’. In such small ways did Inspector Narracott endear himself to his subordinates.
‘Then it wasn’t burglary. You mean, sir, it was an inside job.’