Chapter X

Inspector Snargrove began his reconstruction of the murder in a quiet, even tone.

"Last night," he said, "Mr. Ponsonby Paget sat where I am now. He was expecting some one who did not come. That person was not Mr. Chance. The deceased, knowing his abstemious habits, would not have got a glass ready for Mr. Chance's use, nor would he, as James Brown, the butler, has said he did, have directed the decanter to be refilled. Mr. Paget became very uneasy as time passed and his expected visitor did not arrive. He opened the French window leading into the garden. Why? Not perhaps to look for his visitor there, but because from there he could most quickly and conveniently see if the fog still held. He wondered if the person had been delayed by, or gone astray in, that fog. Therefore that person was neither a neighbour nor, probably, one familiar with the neighbourhood, but one who had to travel some quite considerable distance. It may or may not be symptomatic of Mr. Paget's nervous condition that he left the window unbolted. But his uneasiness assuredly went on increasing as the night passed. He left the house by the front door, and walked for some considerable time, presumably in an attempt to find the person who he must have concluded had lost his way. That he did this on the smallest chance of lighting on him reveals the anxiety he now felt. He returned alone, re-entering by the front door."

At my exclamation of surprise McNab touched me.

"Hush!"

But Snargrove was quite mild about it.

"The overcoat he wore is kept in the cloak-room beside the front door, Mr. Chance. The coat is still damp. Soaked fur retains moisture a long time, especially in muggy weather, such as has prevailed, if _well_ soaked. So he was out some considerable time."

"He was a considerable time in town yesterday," I said dryly.

"Not wearing this coat, Brown asserts. Besides, there's the grit and mud on his dress shoes, and these he certainly did not wear in town."

After that crushing retort I kept a respectful silence.

"He returned alone," Snargrove resumed, in his former dreamy tones, like a man retelling something seen in vision, "replacing the coat in the cupboard where we found it. Why do I say alone?" Snargrove paused with his eyes on me. "Because of what that decanter tells me. When I cross-question it, at first its testimony seems to say he did _not_ return alone. But a little careful questioning gives us the truth. Its measured capacity is one quart, and it was filled to capacity by the butler after dinner last night. Now one pint two ounces are gone. Who consumed that amount? We have the broken pieces of two glasses, both of which were used last night. But note this: that used by the criminal has but one set of clearly defined traces of the right hand finger-prints. That is, it was but _once_ used, and its capacity is a half-pint."

Snargrove's eyes glittered brightly as he looked round his audience. He pointed to the second broken glass, the fragments of which Freely had not brushed.

"I am going to say that if the finger-prints on that glass, the glass used by the dead man, were exposed, they would show that the glass had been used more than once."

Freely, rising hurriedly, produced his powder and the little brush, and set to work on the glass.

"Assume that is so till we know," the inspector continued, "the inference will follow that the two parties who used these glasses used them at different times. Notice this well! This stranger took his whisky in one gulp. Does a guest do that? I think not. Neither, on the other hand, does a host go on helping himself while his guest's glass is empty. And if I am right about his glass that is what Mr. Paget did--if the two men drank together."

"You're right, Snargrove," Freely announced. "He took up and put down this glass five times at least."

Snargrove waved a hand.

"That settles it: the man who used the other glass is the man who _had already_ killed Ponsonby Paget, and he used the glass put there for some one else _who never came_."

All this close reasoning was startlingly impressive and convincing to the mind. The detective inspector drew a deep breath through his teeth.

"And now," he said grimly, "let us have a look at the murderer."

Freely returned to his seat. As for me, I hung on Snargrove's words, startled by his tone of certainty.

"He crept in by the French window while his victim sat where I now sit, with his back to that window. Mr. Paget had given up all expectation by this time, and sat low down in his chair so that he was hidden from the man who examined the room from behind the curtains. This man was tall and dark, well under middle age, of exceptionally powerful build, but lame. After a glance around the room he concluded from seeing the lights left on that it had been only temporarily vacated. He must therefore be quick and take what lay to his hand. He had just emerged from behind the curtain when Mr. Paget rose from his chair and approached the table to replenish his empty glass. The stopper found lying on the table beside the decanter tells its own tale. It tells us that at the precise moment he was about to lift the decanter he heard a noise, probably the intruder's awkward attempt at stepping backwards behind the curtain. Thinking it might be the delayed guest, or Mr. Chance here, Mr. Paget hurried to the alcove. The intruder could not get away in time, and his lameness made it certain he could not finally get away at all. Mr. Paget seized him; there was a struggle, the curtain was torn, and the small table and the draught screen were overturned. Mr. Paget raised an outcry and held on. Though a foot shorter, his weight, and the other's lameness, enabled him to hold his own. The struggle carried round the room. In the end youth told, and the older man, in the act of being thrown, clutched desperately at the other's hair. Only then did the murderer draw his knife. He was a man who knew how to use a knife. But before he could use it Mr. Paget saw what was coming and, dropping his hold, started back, stumbled, fell here." Snargrove moved across to a spot on the carpet on which a little circle of chalk was drawn, and indicated the spot with his foot. "He was trying, you can see, to put the big table between them. He was too late."

The inspector stepped to the place marked by the dark crimson stain. For a moment he stood regarding that stain. Then approaching the table with the exhibits he picked up the envelope. From it he very carefully shook a few strands of dark hair into his palm, and as he looked at them said:

"Freely, he was not one of your chronics. The habitual criminal whose outfit includes a weapon, carries a revolver, not a knife of the sort used here. Your type of criminal has a prejudice against the sight of blood; and in addition he knows all about finger-prints. But this man, though unaware of the danger of finger-prints, was a fellow used to the sight of red. He was probably a soldier, an ex-service man, to judge by the length of this hair. A bit of a fop too"--Snargrove touched the splinter of the mirror--"young men carry that sort of thing now. Ten years ago that would have meant a woman in the case!" He laughed shortly. "This chap whipped it out to see if his face had got--well, splashed. The glass had got cracked in the struggle and this splinter dropped out. Something scared him then. Probably some noise, real or imaginary, for he left in a mighty hurry, before he had time to recover his stick, which was only out of sight under the overturned draught screen, at the spot where he was seized by the murdered man."

Inspector Snargrove, his eyes brightening, nodded satisfaction.

"Yes, it ought not to be a long hunt, Freely. A regular amateur in crime, though not in killing, this fellow. Why, look at that"--he wheeled round dramatically, pointing to the smears on the wall opposite--"who but an amateur would think of wiping his fingers on the wall! In the whole of my experience I never saw anything like it--never."

At this juncture McNab looked up, and, nursing his left knee in his clasped fingers, nodded his agreement.

"Nor have I. That's what makes me wonder." He whistled meditatively for a moment. "But, after all, these smears tell you little."

We were all now looking across at the marks on the wall.

"Yes," Snargrove agreed, "that is so. The dragging of the fingers downward, and the rough canvas surface, destroyed the finger-prints, if that is what you mean."

"Partly," McNab rejoined. His eyes narrowed. "You say he was a tall man. If so he must have gone on his knees to put those marks where they are. He may have gone down to do that, of course, but it bothers me to think why he took the unnecessary trouble. You say he was scared too. There again I'm in a difficulty. The marks were made by the right hand of a man going towards the door--those nearest the door being fainter. But if he was scared by anything at all his natural impulse would make him run for the exit, the window by which he had entered, which was that French window at the other end of the room. But as a fact he made for that door leading to the interior of the house."

"The scare possibly came from the garden," Snargrove said.

"Quite--if there was a scare at all. By the way, you have examined the path for footprints?"

Snargrove smiled.

"We have not--it is only in works of fiction that criminals leave footprints on a brick path."

McNab ignored the gibe.

"Suppose there was a scare, inspector, did the man take the whisky before or after he had wiped his hands on the wall?"

Snargrove smiled still more indulgently.

"After, otherwise the glass would carry traces of blood. Wiping his hands on the wall was sufficient to remove the stains at just the points where the finger-tips made contact with the glass."

"Then if he stayed to drink the whisky he must have discovered his scare to be a false alarm, and did not leave in such a hurry after all?"

Snargrove thoughtfully licked the end of his moustache in between his teeth, and then frowned as if he did not like its taste.

"And yet," McNab continued, "he takes nothing, except the whisky--not even his victim's watch and chain, which glittered in the light before his eyes, ready to his hand!"

"He was an amateur in burglary but not in killing, as I read him," Snargrove said; adding significantly, "Like most amateurs he bungled."

"What's your theory?" Freely asked bluntly, turning to McNab.

"I've got none: it fair beats me," McNab admitted, "to account for all the--the--phenomena." He turned to the inspector. "I'll allow, Snargrove, that some of your inductions were masterly in certain details, but in the total I find your reconstruction does not carry complete conviction. There's that matter of the walking-stick for example."

From the surprised look on Snargrove's face it was clear he plumed himself on his deductions from the stick.

"Well, what about it?"

"You infer the murderer was lame because he used a stick. Put that into logical form and see what happens: _All lame men are men who use walking-sticks._ Is that what you say?"

The inspector after a moment nodded assent.

"That's about it."

"Very good. Here then we have a walking-stick. If the conclusion you draw from it is sound, it should be capable of conversion into this other complementary proposition: _All walking-sticks are things that are used by lame men._ Which is a manifest absurdity, since many who are not lame use walking-sticks. There's the fallacy for you, arising from the fact that the predicate in your proposition is an undistributed predicate. Therefore such a proposition can only convert into this proposition: _Some walking-sticks are things used by lame men._"

"Quite so, and I say this one was."

"But why? Just because you _want_ to believe it. I defy you to give any reason in logic for that belief."

Snargrove, reddening at the gills, pursed out his lips.

"Logic! What is logic?" he asked contemptuously.

The retort that came must have been as little expected by him as it was by me. Perhaps the previous sneer about bungling amateurs had stung more than appeared at the moment.

"Logic," said McNab coldly, "is the science which teaches foolish men a respect for truth not theirs by nature; it trains our ignorant minds to take account of _all_ the facts, and not merely--like lawyers, policemen and politicians--those facts which suit their case."

Snargrove went quite pale--more pale than Freely himself. But I will say this for him--although he may have been a poorer logician, he had a better control of his temper than McNab. McNab called logic a science, but he was as touchy about it as if it had been a religion. Indeed to him it was a religion. So in the silence that followed his rude retort I made a mental note never to speak disrespectfully of logic in his presence. And the next moment I was admiring the amazing way in which discipline told on Inspector Snargrove.

"What are the facts to which you allude?" Snargrove asked calmly.

"Besides those I have already mentioned there's this. You say the murder was not done by the man Ponsonby Paget waited for. He never came, you say. Then, doubtless, a letter of apology or explanation has come in. No? Odd, surely, one would have expected a letter of apology or explanation by first post from a guest who had failed to turn up."

Freely looked over quickly.

"Oh, I don't know," he said pointedly, "bad manners are not so uncommon as all that."

McNab smiled as he took the thrust.

"Sir," he said, turning to Snargrove, "for classifying you with lawyers and politicians just now I apologize humbly."

"That's all right," the inspector said with brusque awkwardness. Then turning to Freely he added, "We'd better be moving now."

McNab must have seen that he had mortally offended Inspector Snargrove, and he stood up eagerly.

"Before you go, inspector, I beg you to consider one possibility overlooked so far in this case. Was the light on or off when those hands touched that wall? It's almost incredible the man knew of the blood on his hands. If the light was off, was the man who left the traces of his blood-stained hands on that wall not feeling for the switch? He was going in its direction, crawling--he was _certainly_ crawling--along the wall, anxiously feeling for something. Why did he crawl? Because the furniture was all scattered over the floor. He was afraid of falling over something, and making more noise, or, more likely, getting hurt. And, if he was in the dark, consider how that fact explains more than the blood-stains. He did not see his hands, and so of course did not observe what he was leaving on the wall-paper. But this would explain, too, the fact that nothing was taken, or could be, till he found the switch; and the darkness would also account for the fact that he left his stick behind. The room was in _darkness_, man."

Snargrove laughed.

"That it wasn't. You are forgetting the mirror. He would hardly take out a mirror in darkness. Besides, Mr. Chance found it lit up."

"Yes, but _not_ lit up by the man who crawled along the wall, and who, as the marks show us, never reached the switch."

"I beg your pardon, you are--"

But McNab threw up his hands on recognizing that Snargrove's mind was closed.

"Oh, man," he cried with a weary sigh, "do not bother to beg my pardon; it would be more to the purpose if you didna beg the question."

And he turned his back on Snargrove.

The inspector wheeled round.

"You go your way, I go mine," he said challengingly. "We'll see who lays him by the heels."

When we in turn left the room we found Freely trying for finger-prints on the glass of the French window, and Snargrove himself busy inside the roped off portion of the drive. That anything could be got there seemed to me incredible. The footprints on the drive, which was spongy after the days of soft rain and fog, were numberless. While McNab watched I tried idly to pick out my own of the previous night, and soon saw how impossible it was. So I turned to see if on McNab's face there was reflected anything of the futility I felt Snargrove's examination to be. But he was not looking at the inspector's broad bent back. He seemed to be occupied in much the same way himself. I waited as patiently as I could, till after a time he perhaps became conscious of me as a disturbing presence and straightened himself.

"You needn't wait," he said. "I won't be coming yet. There's still something I want to ask James Brown, the butler."