“I can see the garden,” he said.
“Can you see the sun-dial?”
“Quite clearly.”
“Good. And now you, Knox.”
I followed, filled with astonishment.
“Do you see the sun-dial?” asked Harley, again.
“Quite clearly.”
“And beyond it?”
“Yes, I can see beyond it. I can even see its shadow lying like a black band on the path.”
“And you can see the yew trees?”
“Of course.”
“But nothing else? Nothing unusual?”
“Nothing.”
“Very well,” said Harley, tersely. “And now, gentlemen, we take to the rough ground, proceeding due east. Will you be good enough to follow?”
Walking around the hut he found an opening in the hedge, and scrambled down into the place where rank grass grew and through which he and I on a previous occasion had made our way to the high road. To-night, however, he did not turn toward the high road, but proceeded along the crest of the hill.
I followed him, excited by the novelty of the proceedings. Wessex, very silent, came behind me, and Inspector Aylesbury, swearing under his breath, waded through the long grass at the rear.
“Will you all turn your attention to the garden again, please?” cried Harley.
We all paused, looking to the right.
“Anything unusual?”
We were agreed that there was not.
“Very well,” said my friend. “You will kindly note that from this point onward the formation of the ground prevents our obtaining any other view of Cray’s Folly or its gardens until we reach the path to the valley, or turn on to the high road. From a point on the latter the tower may be seen but that is all. The first part of my experiment is concluded, gentlemen. We will now return.”
Giving us no opportunity for comment, he plunged on in the direction of the stream, and at a point which I regarded as unnecessarily difficult, crossed it, to the great discomfiture of the heavy Inspector Aylesbury. A few minutes later we found ourselves once more in the grounds of Cray’s Folly.
Harley, evidently with a definite objective in view, led the way up the terraces, through the rhododendrons, and round the base of the tower. He crossed to the sunken garden, and at the top of the steps paused.
“Be good enough to regard the sun-dial from this point,” he directed.
Even as he spoke, I caught my breath, and I heard Aylesbury utter a sort of gasping sound.
Beyond the sun-dial and slightly to the left of it, viewed from where we stood, a faint, elfin light flickered, at a point apparently some four or five feet above the ground!
“What’s this?” muttered Wessex.
“Follow again, gentlemen,” said Harley quietly.
He led the way down to the garden and along the path to the sun-dial. This he passed, pausing immediately in front of the yew tree in which I knew the bullet to be embedded.
He did not speak, but, extending his finger, pointed.
A piece of candle, some four inches long, was attached by means of a nail to the bark of the tree, so that its flame burned immediately in front of the bullet embedded there!
For perhaps ten seconds no one spoke; indeed I think no one moved. Then:
“Good God!” murmured Wessex. “You have done some clever things to my knowledge, Mr. Harley, but this crowns them all.”
“Clever things!” said Inspector Aylesbury. “I think it’s a lot of damned tomfoolery.”
“Do you, Inspector?” asked the Scotland Yard man, quietly. “I don’t. I think it has saved the life of an innocent man.”
“What’s that? What’s that?” cried Aylesbury.
“This candle was burning here on the yew tree,” explained Harley, “at the time that you looked out of the window of the hut. You could not see it. You could not see it from the crest adjoining the Guest House— the only other spot in the neighbourhood from which this garden is visible. Now, since the course of a bullet is more or less straight, and since the nature of the murdered man’s wound proves that it was not deflected in any way, I submit that the one embedded in the yew tree before you could not possibly have been fired from the Guest House! The second part of my experiment, gentlemen, will be designed to prove from whence it
Chapter 33 PAUL HARLEY’S EXPERIMENT CONCLUDED
Up to the very moment that Paul Harley, who had withdrawn, rejoined us in the garden, Inspector Aylesbury had not grasped the significance of that candle burning upon the yew tree. He continued to stare at it as if hypnotized, and when my friend re-appeared, carrying a long ash staff and a sheet of cardboard, I could have laughed to witness the expression upon the Inspector’s face, had I not been too deeply impressed with that which underlay this strange business.
Wessex, on the other hand, was watching my friend eagerly, as an earnest student in the class-room might watch a demonstration by some celebrated lecturer.
“You will notice,” said Paul Harley, “that I have had a number of boards laid down upon the ground yonder, near the sun-dial. They cover a spot where the turf has worn very thin. Now, this garden, because of its sunken position, is naturally damp. Perhaps, Wessex, you would take up these planks for me.”
Inspector Wessex obeyed, and Harley, laying the ash stick and cardboard upon the ground, directed the ray of an electric torch upon the spot uncovered.
“The footprints of Colonel Menendez!” he explained. “Here he turned from the tiled path. He advanced three paces in the direction of the sun-dial, you observe, then stood still, facing we may suppose, since this is the indication of the prints, in a southerly direction.”
“Straight toward the Guest House,” muttered Inspector Aylesbury.
“Roughly,” corrected Harley. “He was fronting in that direction, certainly, but his head may have been turned either to the right or to the left. You observe from the great depth of the toe-marks that on this spot he actually fell. Then, here”— he moved the light— “is the impression of his knee, and here again— ”
He shone the white ray upon a discoloured patch of grass, and then returned the lamp to his pocket.
“I am going to make a hole in the turf,” he continued, “directly between these two footprints, which seem to indicate that the Colonel was standing in the military position of attention at the moment that he met his death.”
With the end of the ash stick, which was pointed, he proceeded to do this.
“Colonel Menendez,” he went on, “stood rather over six feet in his shoes. The stick which now stands upright in the turf measures six feet, from the chalk mark up to which I have buried it to the slot which I have cut in the top. Into this slot I now wedge my sheet of cardboard.”
As he placed the sheet of cardboard in the slot which he had indicated, I saw that a round hole was cut in it some six inches in diameter. We watched these proceedings in silence, then:
“If you will allow me to adjust the candle, gentlemen,” said Harley, “which has burned a little too low for my purpose, I shall proceed to the second part of this experiment.”
He walked up to the yew tree, and by means of bending the nail upward he raised the flame of the candle level with the base of the embedded bullet.
“By heavens!” cried Wessex, suddenly divining the object of these proceedings, “Mr. Harley, this is genius!”
“Thank you, Wessex,” Harley replied, quietly, but nevertheless he was unable to hide his gratification. “You see my point?”
