The Superintendent hunted through a sheaf of documents, and handed two typewritten sheets of foolscap across the desk. "Here you are. You'll want to have thc photographs too," he added, producing these.
"Thanks." Inspector Harding took the prints, and laid them down, without raising his eyes from the report in his hand. He read in silence for a minute or two, while the Superintendent and the Sergeant watched him. Then he looked up. "I see. He was stabbed from behind as he sat at his desk, with a Chinese dagger used by him as a paper-knife, the knife entering the neck below the right ear, and severing the carotid artery. Death, in the opinion of' — he consulted the first report — "Dr Raymond, occurring within a minute, possibly less. No finger-prints?"
The Superintendent shook his head. "No, that's just what makes it difficult for us. Nowadays people are so knowing, what with story books about murders and I don't know what besides, that they're up to all the dodges. Whoever done this murder took care to wear gloves. That's all this talk of progress leads to, putting people up to them sort of tricks," he said bitterly, and opened a drawer in the desk, and extracted from it the chinese dagger. "That's it. Exhibit No. l," he said. "Nasty looking to keep lying about, I call it."
The Inspector took the knife, which was a thin blade set in a carved ivory handle, and held it for a moment in his hand. "Very nasty," he agreed, and gave it back.
"Exhibit No. 2," proceeded the Superintendent, handing over a sheet of note-paper. "Found under the deceased's hand, like as if he might have written on it just before he died."
"That's interesting," said the Inspector.
"Well, I don't know so much about that. The Divisional Surgeon, he holds to the opinion that Sir Arthur wouldn't have had time to write anything after the blow was struck. On the other hand, Dr Raymond thinks that he could. That's what it is with doctors. What with one saying one thing, and another arguing it could have happened different, you never know where you are. And it doesn't seem to me to lead anywhere, that bit of paper. Well, I mean, look at it!"
The Inspector was looking at it. Scrawled in pencil across a half-sheet of engraved note-paper was the word "There'. There was no more; the faint pencil mark tailed off, as though the pencil had dropped suddenly from nerveless fingers.
"To my mind it doesn't lead anywhere," grumbled the Superintendent. "There what? The way I look at it is this, Supposing Sir Arthur was starting out to write something when suddenly he gets stabbed from behind? There is nothing to show he wrote it after he'd been stabbed."
"Except that the word is scrawled crookedly across the paper," suggested the Inspector. "I should like to keep this, if I may, Superintendent."
"Oh, you can have it," said the Superintendent generously. "It's about all there is to have, what's more. Not but what something may turn up, because the Chief Constable was very set on having nothing disturbed in the room where the murder took place, so there hasn't been what I call a proper search."
"I see. And about the position of the study: I under stand it is in the front of the house, facing on to the drive?"
"That's right. On the right of the front door as you go in, it is, there being what they call the morning-room behind it, then the stairs, and beyond them the drawing-room, which is a big room along the back of the house next to the billiard-room."
"The terrace, I take it, is also at the back of the house.? Then the study is at a considerable distance from it? No chance of any noise in the study reaching the ears of anyone on the terrace?"
"Oh dear me, no," said the Superintendent, with a tolerant smile for one as yet unacquainted with the dimensions of the Grange. "It's a very big house. What you might call a mansion. Very well off, Sir Arthur was. and did himself proud."
"And these windows," pursued the Inspector, consulting one of the photographs. "Were they open, or shut?"
"Wide open, the front window was. The one on the west side the General never had open, it being right opposite the door, and him not liking a draught. It was the butler shut the windows after the crime was discovered, which, properly speaking, he shouldn't have done."
"No footmarks outside?"
"No, but that doesn't mean anything either, when you come to think of it. There hasn't been any rain since I don't know when, and the ground's as hard as a rock. "It isn't as though there was a flower-bed by the window either. Well, naturally, there wouldn't be, because it's one of them French windows, as you can see for yourself. There's just a bit of grass, and then the drive, which is gravel. Whoever it was that murdered the General might have come in through the window without leaving any trace, or, on the other hand, he might have come in by the door, and no one the wiser."
"That makes it rather difficult," said the Inspector. "Is it known whether the General had any enemies?" He looked up from the photographs as he spoke, and saw that both men's faces had relaxed into broad grins. His own rather grave grey eyes smiled faintly. "Oh! Have I said something funny?"
"Well, Inspector Harding, you've pretty well hit the nail on the head, that's what you've done," said the Superintendent. "I don't suppose, if you was to search the whole county, you'd find anyone who'd got more enemies than what Sir Arthur had. I don't mind going so far as to say that if you set out to find somebody who'd got a good word to say for him you'd have a job."
"That's a fact," corroborated the Sergeant, in a slow deep voice. "You'd have a job."
It was at this moment that the Chief Constable walked into the room.
"Ah, Superintendent, I see the Inspector has — er arrived. No doubt you have put him in — er — possession of the facts. Inspector Harding, isn't it? Very glad you have got down here, Inspector."
The Inspector had risen, and turned to face the newcomer. Major Grierson, who had held out his hand looked at him extremely sharply, and said: "Dear me surely we have — er — met before? Your face is very — er — familiar, yet for the moment I cannot exactly call to er — mind where we have met Do you, by any chance — remember meeting me?"
"Yes, sir, I remember you perfectly," answered the Inspector, shaking hands. "We met in Bailleul."
"Why, of course, of course!" exclaimed the Major. "Harding! Dear me! Yes! You were attached to Colonel — er — Mason! Yes, yes! Well, this is a surprise! But what are you doing in the Police Force? You were — wait. I have it! You were reading law at — er — Oxford!"
"The War rather knocked that on the head, sir, so I joined the Police Force instead."
"Well, well, well!" said Major Grierson.
The Inspector moved to the desk, and put down the photograph he was still holding in his left hand. "Superintendent Lupton has just been giving me all the facts of this case, sir," he said. "It looks like being a bit of a teaser."
The Major's face clouded over. "Very bad business. Nasty — er — case, Harding. I felt at once it was — er -a matter for Scotland Yard. Too many people in it. Have you read the — er — statements?"
"Not yet, sir. I was going to suggest to the Superintendant that he should let me take them away with me now, so that I can study them before I go up to the Grange."
"By all means! Certainly! A very good — er — plan, Superintendent. Don't you — er — agree?"
The Superintendent, who had viewed with disfavour the meeting between the Major and.Inspector Harding said that he had no objection, but that in his opinion the sooner the Inspector went up to the Grange the better it would be.
The Inspector looked at his wrist-watch. "Then shall we say in an hour's time? That will make it half past three."
"Yes, yes, do just as you —- er — think best, Harding," said the Major. "Where are you — er — putting up?"
"At the Crown, sir, if they have a room," replied the Inspector.