Hemingway was unimpressed. "Nothing to stop him giving notice, if he couldn't stand Mr. Herriard," he said. "Unless, of course, he'd got a legacy coming to him?"
"That I don't know, not having seen the will, but I should not think he had. He'd only been with Mr. Herriard a matter of a few months. Mind you, he never said Mr. Herriard was a hard master! It was the butler told me that. Ford spoke very nicely about his master. Spoke up for Mr. Stephen, too."
"What's he like?" demanded Hemingway.
"Wiry little chap, about thirty-five or six, I'd say. Bit scared of me, he was, but he spoke out quite honest and aboveboard, and didn't try to throw suspicion on to anyone - except Mr. Roydon, maybe, though he was only telling me what it was his duty to, after all."
"What about the butler?"
"I'd say he was all right. Very starchy he is, but not above putting his ear to keyholes. He doesn't like Mr. Stephen, but that's nothing. He's been some time with Mr. Herriard."
"Might be coming in for a legacy, of course," said the Chief Constable. "He'd hardly commit a murder for it, though. Not a man like Sturry. Besides -" He paused, frowning, and then said, shooting a look at Hemingway from under his brows: "Not the point. I told you this was the devil of a case, Inspector. The suspects aren't worrying me: it's how the deuce the murder was committed at all.
"What, you aren't going to tell me this is one of these locked-door cases you read about, sir?" exclaimed Hemingway incredulously.
"It is, just that. Now, you listen to the facts as we know them! Roydon read his play to the rest of the house-party after tea yesterday. It ended in a general row; the party split up, and went off upstairs to change for dinner, leaving Miss Clare in the library, and Joseph Herriard trying to smooth his brother down in the drawing-room. Nat then went up to his room, still furious. Miss Clare, who came out of the library just as he was going upstairs, heard him slam his bedroom door. She and Joseph then went up together. They were the last people except the murderer, of course - to see Nat alive. Some time between then, which must have been between seven thirty and eight, and when the party gathered in the drawing-room again for cocktails, Nat was stabbed to death in his bedroom. When he didn't join the party, Joseph went up to tell him they were all waiting for him. He found Ford outside Nat's door, pretty worried at getting no answer to his knocking. The door was locked, and when Ford and Stephen Herriard forced the lock, Nat was lying dead on the floor, with the windows latched securely, both the door into his bedroom and that from his bathroom on to the upper hall locked on the inside, and only the ventilator above the bathroom window open."
"What kind of a ventilator?" asked Hemingway.
"The ordinary sort, opening outwards, which you often get above a casement-window."
"Big enough for anyone to get in through it?"
The Chief Constable looked at Inspector Colwall, who said slowly: "Well; it is, and it isn't, if you take my meaning. A man would have to be pretty small to do it, and, what's more, he'd need to be clever. It isn't as though the room's on the ground-floor, you see. What with having to climb up to it, and then squirm in without making any noise - well, I don't see how it could have been done, I'm bound to confess. Nor I couldn't discover any signs of footprints on the sill, but you can't go by that entirely, for it was snowing hard all yesterday evening, and they might easily have been covered up."
"Any finger-prints?"
"Only on the insides of the windows, and they were Ford's, just as you'd expect. It was he who shut the windows after tea, and drew the curtains."
"What about the door-keys?"
"That's just it," said the Major. "We've had them carefully examined, and we can't detect any of the scratches you'd expect to find if they'd been turned in the locks from outside."
"That's queer," said Hemingway, with the bird-like look in his eye which his Sergeant knew betokened lively interest. "Sounds like a classy case, after all. Any signs of a struggle in the room, sir?"
"None whatsoever."
"Looks as though he wasn't expecting trouble from his visitor, then. Those the photographs, sir? Thank you."
He considered them for a moment or two, and remarked: "Still in his day-clothes."
"Yes; there were no signs that he'd started to change. Ford had prepared his bath, and laid out his dinnerjacket and things."
"He didn't have this Ford in to help him dress?"
"Apparently he did sometimes, but not always. He rang if he wanted Ford."
"Oh! Weapon?"
"The doctors are agreed that the blow was struck with a thin, sharp instrument, probably a knife. You'll see the position of the wound. There was scarcely any external bleeding, but death, I'm informed, must have followed within a very few minutes."
"I see, sir. Weapon not found?"
"Not so far. But to my mind it hasn't been looked for," said the Major, casting a severe glance towards Inspector Colwall.
The Inspector reddened "It was looked for in the deceased's room, sir, but you know as well as I do that it's a very big house, and what with that, and the number of people all staying there, with their baggage - well, it's a tall order to find the weapon, and I didn't like to turn the place upside-down."
The Major looked unconvinced, but Hemingway said: "No, you'd have been at it all night and half today, I daresay."
"Well, that's where it is," said Colwall gratefully.
"I don't know that the weapon's going to interest me much," pursued Hemingway. "What with all these thrillers that get written nowadays by people who ought to know better than to go putting ideas into criminals' heads, there's no chance of any murderer forgetting to wipe off his finger-prints. Sickening, I call it. Now, how do you figure the murderer got into that room, Inspector?"
Colwall shook his head. "It's got me beat. If there wasn't any hanky-panky with the key - and that's an expert's job, when you come to think of it - I don't see how anyone could have got in."
"No; but there's one piece of evidence we mustn't forget," interposed the Chief Constable. "Stephen Herriard's cigarette-case was found lying on the floor by the fire, half-hidden by an armchair."
"That doesn't look so good for Stephen Herriard," said Hemingway. "Does he own it?"
"Yes, he owned it, but Miss Clare deposed that he had given it to Miss Dean before he went up to change for dinner."
"What did she have to say to that?" asked Hemingway, addressing himself to Colwall.
Inspector Colwall sighed. "She had a lot to say, being one of those who can't give you a plain yes or no. Anyone would have thought she expected to be charged with having committed the murder, simply through admitting she'd had the case! In the end, she did say she'd had it, but she swore she never took it out of the drawing-room. Her theory is that Mr. Stephen himself must have picked it up, and I'm bound to say it's likely he did."
"What did he say?"
"He didn't say much," answered Colwall reflectively. "He didn't, so to speak, get much chance, for Miss Clare started in to tell Miss Dean off good and proper, and what with that, and Mr.. Joseph trying to make me believe the case might have slipped out of Mr. Stephen's pocket after the murder had been discovered, when he was bending over the body -"
"Could it?" interrupted Hemingway.
"Not a chance, seeing where it was found. Mr. Stephen saw that himself. If he'd been sitting in a chair by the fire, though, and took out his case for a cigarette, and put it back sort of careless, so that it didn't slip into his pocket, but fell into the chair instead, and maybe slid off when he got up - well, that might account for it."
"Sat down with his uncle for a chat and a quiet smoke, and then murdered him when he wasn't looking?" demanded Hemingway. "Cold-blooded chap he'd have to be!"
"He is," said the Major shortly. "Anyone will tell you that."