Mold thought for a moment or two before beginning his tale.
“I’m trying to remember how many people there were in the room just before the lights went out,” he explained at last, “but somehow I don’t quite seem able to put a figure on it, Sir Clinton. I’ve a sort of feeling that some of ’em must ha’ got away before I stopped the door—sneaked off in the dark. At least I know I felt surprised when I saw how few I’d got left when they began to come up to me to be let out. But that’s all I can really say, sir.”
Sir Clinton evidently approved of the keeper’s caution.
“Now tell us exactly what happened when the light went out. This is the bit where I want you to be careful. Tell us everything you can remember.”
Mold fixed his eye on the corner of the room near the safe.
“I was patrollin’ round the room, sir, most of the night. I didn’t stand in one place all the time. Now just when the light was about to go out, I was walkin’ away from this case here”—he nodded towards the rifled central case—“and as near as may be, I’d got to the entrance to that second-last bay, just before you come to the safe. I just turned round to come back, when I heard a pistol goin’ off.”
“That was the first thing that attracted your attention?” questioned Sir Clinton. “It’s an important point, Mold.”
“That was the first thing out o’ the common that happened,” Mold asserted. “The pistol went bang, and out went the light, and I heard glass tinkling all over the place.”
“Shot the light out, did they?” Sir Clinton mused.
He glanced up at the carved wooden ceiling, but evidently failed to find what he was looking for.
“Have you a pair of race-glasses, Joan? Prismatics, or even opera-glasses? Tell Mold where he can get them, please.”
Joan gave the keeper instructions and he left the room.
“Knock when you come back again,” Sir Clinton ordered. “I’m going to lock the door to keep out the inquisitive.”
As soon as the keeper was out of earshot, Sir Clinton turned to Joan.
“This fellow Mold, is he a reliable man? Do you know anything about him, Joan?”
“He’s our head keeper. We’ve always trusted him completely.”
She glanced at Sir Clinton, trying to read the expression on his face.
“You don’t think he’s at the bottom of the business, do you? I never thought of that!”
“I’m only collecting facts at present. All I want to know is whether you know Mold to be reliable.”
“We’ve always found him so.”
“Good. We’ll make a note of that; and if we get the thing cleared up, then we’ll perhaps be able to confirm that opinion of yours.”
In a few minutes a knock came at the door and Sir Clinton admitted the keeper.
“Prismatics?” he said, taking the glasses from Mold. “They’ll do quite well.”
Adjusting the focus, he subjected the ceiling of the room to a minute scrutiny. At last he handed the glasses to Joan.
“Look up there,” he said, indicating the position.
Joan swept the place with the glasses for a moment.
“I see,” she said. “That’s a bullet-hole in the wood, isn’t it?”
Sir Clinton confirmed her guess.
“That’s evidently where the bullet went after knocking the lamp to pieces. Pull the steps over there, Mold. I want to have a closer look at the thing.”
With some difficulty, owing to his injured ankle, he ascended the steps and inspected the tiny cavity.
“It looks like a ·22 calibre. One could carry a Colt pistol of that size in one’s pocket and no one would notice it.”
His eye traced out the line joining the bullet-mark and the lamp.
“The shot was evidently fired by someone in that bay over there,” he inferred. “Just go to where you were standing when the light went out, Mold. Can you see into this bay here?”
Mold looked round and discovered that a show-case interposed between him and the point from which the pistol had been fired.
“They evidently thought of everything,” Sir Clinton said, when he heard Mold’s report. “If a man had brandished his pistol in front of Mold, there was always a chance that Mold might have remembered his costume. Firing from that hiding-place, he was quite safe, and could take time over his aim if he wanted to.”
He climbed down the steps and verified the matter by going to the position from which the shot had been fired. It was evident that the shooter was out of sight of the keeper at the actual moment of the discharge.
“Now what happened after that, Mold?” Sir Clinton demanded, coming back to the central case again.
Mold scratched his ear as though reflecting, then hurriedly took his hand down again.
“This pistol went off, sir; and the lamp-glass tinkled all over the place. I got a start—who wouldn’t?—with the light going out, and all. Before I could move an inch, someone got a grip of my wrists and swung me round. He twisted my arms behind my back and I couldn’t do anything but kick—and not much kickin’ even, or I’d have gone down on my face.”
“Did you manage to get home on him at all?”
“I think I kicked him once, sir; but it was only a graze.”
“Pity,” Sir Clinton said. “It would have always been something gained if you’d marked him with a good bruise.”
“Oh, there’ll be a mark, if that’s all you want, sir. But it wouldn’t prevent him runnin’ at all.”
“And then?” Sir Clinton brought Mold back to his story.
“Then, almost at once when the lights went out, I heard glass breakin’—just as if you’d heaved a stone through a window. It seemed to me—but I couldn’t take my oath on it—as if there was two smashes, one after t’other. I couldn’t be sure. Then there was a lot of scufflin’ in the dark; but who did it, I couldn’t rightly say. I was busy tryin’ to get free from the man who was holdin’ me then.”
Sir Clinton moved over to the rifled compartment and inspected the broken glass thoughtfully for a moment or two.
“Are you looking for finger-marks?” asked Joan, as she came to his side.
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Not much use hunting for finger-marks round here. Remember how many people must have leaned on this case at one time or other during the evening, when they were looking at the collection before the robbery. Finger-prints would prove nothing against anyone in particular, I’m afraid, Joan. What I’m really trying to find is some evidence confirming Mold’s notion that he heard two smashes after the light went out. It certainly looks as if he were right. If you look at the way that bit of glass there is cracked, you’ll see two series of lines in it. It might have been cracked here”—he pointed with his finger—“first of alclass="underline" long cracks radiating from a smash over in this direction. Then there was a second blow—about here—which snapped off the apices of the spears of glass left after the first smash. But that really proves nothing. The same man might easily have hit the pane twice.”
He turned back to the keeper.
“Can you give me an estimate, Mold, of how long it was between the two crashes you heard?”
Mold considered carefully before replying.
“So far’s I can remember, Sir Clinton, it was about five seconds. But I’ll not take my oath on it.”
“I wish you could be surer,” said the Chief Constable. “If it really was five seconds, it certainly looks like two separate affairs. A man smashing glass with repeated blows wouldn’t wait five seconds between them.
He scanned the broken glass again.
“There’s a lot of jagged stuff round the edge of the hole but no blood, so far as I can see. The fellow must have worn a thick glove if he got his hand in there in the dark without cutting himself in the hurry.”