“That part of Marden’s story seems true enough. He did slip here. If you come across, you’ll see a line where the polish of the parquet has been taken off by some hard part of his shoe. You won’t be able to spot it unless you make a mirror of the floor.”
The Inspector in his turn moved over and satisfied himself of the existence of the faint mark.
“That confirms part of his story,” he admitted, grudgingly. “There’s a lot of blood about, quite apart from the stuff from the body. One might make something out of that.”
“Suppose we try,” Sir Clinton suggested. “Assume that he cut his hand here on the glass. He’d be all asprawl on the floor; and the first thing he’d do would be to put his hands down to help himself up. That would account for these biggish patches here, under the case. Then a foot or so away you see those round marks of droplets with tiny splashes radiating from them with a fair regularity all round. These must have been made by drops falling from his hand while he stood still—no doubt while he was feeling with the other hand for his handkerchief to stanch the bleeding.”
The Inspector indicated his agreement.
“After he’d got it fixed up, one might expect him to go over and look at Foss. He’d gone down on the floor, you remember, while he was hurrying to Foss’s assistance.”
“There’s no sign of that,” Armadale hastened to point out. “I can’t see any blood-drops round about the body.”
“Oh, don’t be in too much of a hurry, Inspector. Perhaps they fell in the pool of Foss’s own blood or, more probably, his handkerchief soaked up any blood that flowed just then.”
Sir Clinton, still with his eyes on the ground, began to cast about in search of further traces.
“Ah, here are a couple of drops at the end of the bay. Have a look at them, Inspector.”
Armadale knelt down and examined the clots.
“Made on his way to the door, probably,” he suggested.
“They might have been, if he was swinging his arm as one does when one walks freely; but one doesn’t usually swing the arm when there’s a fresh wound in the hand, I think. These aren’t round blobs like the others; they’re elongated, and all the splashing from them is at one end—the end towards the safe. His hand, when they were made, was moving towards the safe’s bay, whatever his body was doing.”
Sir Clinton made a rough measurement of the distance between the two drops.
“If they’d been nearer together or further apart, then each of them might have been made while his arm was going backwards in its natural swing while he was walking towards the door. But the distance between them won’t fit that. You’ll see at once if you try walking over the ground yourself, Inspector; for you’re just about Marden’s height and your stride must be nearly the same as his.”
“He said something about going to the safe and trying the handle,” the Inspector admitted, grudgingly. “So far, his tale’s got some support.”
Sir Clinton smiled covertly at Armadale’s obvious desire to pick holes in the valet’s narrative.
“Well, let’s find out how it happened,” Sir Clinton suggested. “He evidently passed this bay and went on towards the next one, where the safe is. We’ll follow his example.”
They turned the corner of the show-case and stepped over to the safe door.
“There’s a trace of blood on the handle, true enough,” the Inspector admitted. “But I’m not sure he told the truth about why he came to the safe.”
Sir Clinton inspected the smear of blood on the handle, but he seemed to attach very little importance to it.
“I suppose one mustn’t jump to conclusions and assume that everything’s all above-board,” he conceded. “But even if we keep open minds, wouldn’t it be the most natural thing in the world for Marden to try the safe door? Remember what had happened according to his story. Mr Chacewater was in the room, for Marden saw him with his own eyes. Mr Chacewater turned the corner of a bay—the one next this; and then Marden lost him for good. If you’d been in Marden’s place, wouldn’t you have searched about, and then, finding no trace of the missing man, wouldn’t you have jumped to the conclusion that he might be hidden in the safe? And wouldn’t you have given the handle a pull, just to make sure the safe was really locked and that Mr Chacewater wasn’t hiding inside it?”
“I suppose so,” conceded the Inspector, evidently dissatisfied.
“I expect his tale isn’t complete, of course. He could hardly give every detail. It would be a bit suspicious if he had, I think. If his tale had been absolutely complete in every detail, I’d be inclined to suspect a previously prepared recitation rather than an account of the facts. In a case of this sort, one could hardly expect a water-tight narrative, could one?”
He continued his examination of the floor; but there seemed to be no other blood-stains of any importance.
“Now let’s have a glance at the body,” he suggested. “We needn’t shift it till the surgeon comes; but we can see what’s to be seen without altering its position in the meanwhile.”
The Inspector was the first to reach the spot, and as he knelt down beside the corpse he gave an exclamation of surprise.
“Here’s an automatic pistol, sir. It’s lying almost under the body, but I can see the muzzle. It looks like a ·38 calibre.”
“Leave it there. We’ll get at it later.”
Sir Clinton examined the body itself. The cause of death seemed obvious enough, for the weapon still remained in the wound. A glance at it set the Chief Constable’s eye ranging over the museum cases. He retreated from the bay and searched for a time until he found what he was looking for: an empty sheath in an unlocked case. Without touching the sheath, he scanned the Japanese inscription on its surface.
“So that’s the thing?”
The Inspector had come across to his side and stood looking at the sheath.
“So the thing’s one of the specimens?” he asked.
“Yes. Don’t touch it, Inspector. We may as well see whose finger-prints are on it, though it’s quite on the cards that it’s been handled by other people lately as well as the murderer. It’s rather a show specimen, you see—one of Muramasa’s making. This was the sword they were discussing when they were out on the terrace. Muramasa’s weapons have the name of being unlucky; and this one seems to bear out the legend.”
The Inspector looked at the sheath with apparent care, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.
“Nobody could have got away from here through the windows,” he observed, rather irrelevantly. “They’re all barred outside, and the catches are fast on the sashes.”
Evidently Sir Clinton had noticed this in the course of his previous search, for he gave a tacit assent to the Inspector’s statement without even glancing up at the windows.
“Here are the sheets of rubbing-paper that Foss was using,” the Inspector went on, picking them up as he spoke. “They’ll have his finger-prints on them, so I’ll stow them away. We might need them. One never knows.”
“We can get actual prints from the body if we need them,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “You don’t suppose it’s a suicide case, do you?”
The Inspector was too wary to throw himself open to attack. He contented himself with putting the papers away carefully in his pocket-book.
“Finger-prints will be useful, though,” Sir Clinton went on. “At the earliest possible moment, Inspector, I want you to get prints from the fingers of everyone in the house. Start with Miss Chacewater. She’ll agree to let you take her’s without any trouble; and after that you can go on to Mr Clifford and so down the scale. We’ve no authority for insisting, of course; but you can make a note if anyone objects. I expect you’ll get the lot without difficulty.”