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‘Ah, not now!’ the Prince said. ‘If I can be of use to Mrs Carter, who is left without a protector, be assured that I shall remain! She asks me, in fact.’
‘No doubt that would be best, sir,’ agreed the Inspector.
He left the house, shortly after his interview with the Prince, feeling that he had amassed sufficient evidence to keep him busy for some time. Returning to the Dower House, he was met in the drive by the Sergeant he had left in charge of investigations there. The Sergeant greeted him with an air of considerable satisfaction. ‘We’ve got the gun, sir!’ he said.
‘Got the gun, have you? Where did you find it?’
‘Down there in the shrubbery,’ replied the Sergeant, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Wright’s been over it for fingerprints, but there aren’t any. That makes it murder all right, I reckon. Not a doubt but that the bloke who did this took his shot, dropped the gun, and slipped off through them bushes to the road. Nice, neat job, if you ask me.’
‘Find any footprints?’
‘No, sir. Ground’s baked hard, you know. I’ll show you.’
He led the Inspector to the lawn that ran down to the stream, but instead of going to the bridge, he plunged into the thicket at a point where a clump of azaleas jutted out beyond the dark mass of rhododendrons. Worming his way between the bushes, and holding back stray branches so that his superior’s face should not be scratched by them, he conducted him to a place in the centre of the shrubbery where the bushes grew less thickly. ‘This is where I found the rifle,’ he said. ‘Now, you take a look, sir! Beautiful, easy shot, wouldn’t it be?’
The Inspector dropped on to his knee, and found that he was looking down at the bridge some twenty yards away, and clearly visible between an azalea and a towering rhododendron. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Easy enough. He must have stayed quiet, though, till Mr White, and the other two, had run down to the bridge, or they’d have heard him.’
‘That’s all right,’ replied the Sergeant. ‘Plenty of time for him to make his getaway while they was on the bridge. I reckon this is the way he went.’ He pushed on through the thicket, demonstrating to his chief, as he went, why the unknown murderer must, in his opinion, have struck up towards the carriage-drive, which was at the side of the house. ‘The stream bends right round, as you know, sir. There’s a bit of a pool on the other side of that bank, so it stands to reason he didn’t go that way. No, the way I look at it is, he fired his shot, waited till the people by the house had run down to the bridge, dropped the rifle, and slunk off the way he came, either taking a chance of being seen from the house, and coming out on the d
rive just by the gate, or, more likely, climbing over the wall and walking off down the road. Anyone could get over that wall, as you’ll see for yourself in a minute, sir.’
‘Hold on a moment! I’ll take a look at the lie of the land,’ said the Inspector, surmounting the slight, sandy bank which the Sergeant had pointed out to him.
The stream, taking a bend to the south, widened, below the bank, into a pool, narrowed again, and meandered on until it ran under a bridge in the highway not far from one of the drive-gates. The Inspector gazed at the pool in ruminative silence until the Sergeant, unable to discover what was holding his interest, ventured to ask him.
‘I was thinking,’ said the Inspector, ‘that no one could jump over that pool.’
‘Well, they wouldn’t want to, would they?’ said the Sergeant, a little impatiently. ‘The getaway must have been the way I told you, sir. Stands to reason!’
‘Nor,’ said the Inspector, ‘could they jump the stream above it without being seen by anyone standing on the bridge between the two houses.’
‘But, sir—’
‘Just a moment, if you please!’ said the Inspector, moving along the bank. ‘Didn’t happen to notice that below the pool the stream’s a sight narrower, did you?’
‘Well, I’m bound to say I don’t get what you’re after, sir!’ protested the Sergeant. ‘Are you telling me the murderer got away through the Palings’ grounds?’
‘I’m not telling you anything as yet,’ replied the Inspector. ‘I’m not leaving a possibility out of my calculations, either.’
The Sergeant looked at the stream running below him, and then glanced across at the opposite bank. ‘I suppose it would be easy enough to jump,’ he said. ‘I’d expect to find a footmark or so, though. Ground’s bound to be soft, not to say boggy, down by the water.’
‘Take a look,’ said the Inspector briefly, and went off to explore the other way of escape.
The Sergeant rejoined him later by the police-car in the drive. There was mud on his boots, and he was looking rather sulky. ‘I didn’t find any trace of footmarks,’ he said.
‘Ah well!’ replied the Inspector. ‘Maybe I’m wrong. Nothing more to be done here: we’ll get back to the station.’
As the police-car reached the gate, it had to wait to allow another car, on the road, to go past. The Sergeant remarked that it was Dr Chester’s Rover. ‘Dashing off to Palings, I wouldn’t wonder. By all accounts, Mrs Carter sends for him to hold her hand every time her little finger aches. I don’t envy him his job today.’
‘No,’ agreed the Inspector. ‘Nor me.’
‘It wasn’t him called in when Carter was shot, was it?’
‘No. Hinchcliffe. Chester was out on a case.’
‘I’ll bet he’s thanking his stars for it!’ said the Sergeant. ‘Fancy having to tell Mrs C. how he found her husband!’
The Sergeant was quite right in thinking that the car was the doctor’s, and that the doctor was bound for Palings. A few minutes later he drew up outside the porch, and got out, stripping off the gloves he wore for driving, and tossing them into the car. The front door was still standing open, and he walked into the hall, encountering there Mary, who had just come down the stairs. She was looking pale, and worried, but her eyes lit up when she saw Chester, and she went quickly towards him, holding out her hands.
