Bat Wing

“Certainly.”

“In ten minutes we shall know the truth.”

“Oh, I see,” muttered Inspector Aylesbury; “we shall know the truth, eh? If you ask me the truth, it’s this, that we are a set of lunatics.”

“My dear Inspector Aylesbury,” said Harley, good humouredly, “surely you have grasped the lesson of experiment number one?”

“Well,” admitted the other, “it’s funny, certainly. I mean, it wants a lot of explaining, but I can’t say I’m convinced.”

“That’s a pity,” murmured Wessex, “because I am.”

“You see, Inspector,” Harley continued, patiently, “the body of Colonel Menendez as it lay formed a straight line between the sun-dial and the hut in the garden of the Guest House. That is to say: a line drawn from the window of the hut to the sun-dial must have passed through the body. Very well. Such an imaginary line, if continued beyond the sun-dial, would have terminated near the base of the seventh yew tree. Accordingly, I naturally looked for the bullet there. It was not there. But I found it, as you know, in the ninth tree. Therefore, the shot could not possibly have been fired from the Guest House, because the spot in the ninth yew where the bullet had lodged is not visible from the Guest House.”

Inspector Aylesbury removed his cap and scratched his head vigorously.

“In order that we may avoid waste of valuable time,” said Harley, finally, “let us take a hasty observation from here. As a matter of fact, I have done so already, as nearly as was possible, without employing this rough apparatus.”

He knelt down beside the yew tree, lowering his head so that the candlelight shone upon the brown, eager face, and looked upward, over the top of the sun-dial and through the hole in the cardboard.

“Yes,” he muttered, a note of rising excitement in his voice. “As I thought, as I thought. Come, gentlemen, let us hurry.”

He walked rapidly out of the garden, and up the steps, whilst we followed dumb with wonder— or such at any rate was the cause of my own silence.

In the hall Pedro was standing, a bunch of keys in his hand, and evidently expecting Harley.

“Will you take us by the shortest way to the tower stairs?” my friend directed.

“Yes, sir.”

Doubting, wondering, scarcely knowing whether to be fearful or jubilant, I followed, along a carpeted corridor, and thence, a heavy, oaken door being unlocked, across a dusty and deserted apartment apparently intended for a drawing room. From this, through a second doorway we were led into a small, square, unfurnished room, which I knew must be situated in the base of the tower. Yet a third door was unlocked, and:

“Here is the stair, sir,” said Pedro.

In Indian file we mounted to the first floor, to find ourselves in a second, identical room, also stripped of furniture and decorations. Harley barely glanced out of the northern window, shook his head, and:

“Next floor, Pedro,” he directed.

Up we went, our footsteps arousing a cloud of dust from the uncarpeted stairs, and the sound of our movements echoing in hollow fashion around the deserted rooms.

Gaining the next floor, Harley, unable any longer to conceal his excitement, ran to the north window, looked out, and:

“Gentlemen,” he said, “my experiment is complete!”

He turned, his back to the window, and faced us in the dusk of the room.

“Assuming the ash stick to represent the upright body of Colonel Menendez,” he continued, “and the sheet of cardboard to represent his head, the hole which I have cut in it corresponds fairly nearly to the position of his forehead. Further assuming the bullet to have illustrated Euclid’s definition of a straight line, such a line,followed back from the yew tree to the spot where the rifle rested, would pass through the hole in the cardboard! In other words, there is only one place from which it is possible to see the flame of the candle through the hole in the cardboard: the place where the rifle rested! Stand here in the left-hand angle of the window and stoop down! Will you come first, Knox?”

I stepped across the room, bent down, and stared out of the window, across the Tudor garden. Plainly I could see the sun-dial with the ash stick planted before it. I could see the piece of cardboard which surmounted it— and, through the hole cut in the cardboard, I could see the feeble flame of the candle nailed to the ninth yew tree!

I stood upright, knowing that I had grown pale, and conscious of a moist sensation upon my forehead.

“Merciful God!” I said in a hollow voice. “It was from this window that the shot was fired which killed him!”

Chapter 34 THE CREEPING SICKNESS

From the ensuing consultation in the library we did not rise until close upon midnight. To the turbid intelligence of Inspector Aylesbury the fact by this time had penetrated that Colin Camber was innocent, that he was the victim of a frame-up, and that Colonel Juan Menendez had been shot from a window of his own house.

By a process of lucid reasoning which must have convinced a junior schoolboy, Paul Harley, there in the big library, with its garish bookcases and its Moorish ornaments, had eliminated every member of the household from the list of suspects. His concluding words, I remember, were as follows:

“Of the known occupants of Cray’s Folly on the night of the tragedy we now find ourselves reduced to four, any one of whom, from the point of view of an impartial critic uninfluenced by personal character, question, or motive, or any consideration other than that of physical possibility, might have shot Colonel Menendez. They are, firstly: Myself.

“In order to believe me guilty, it would be necessary to discount the evidence of Knox, who saw me on the gravel path below at the time that the shot was fired from the tower window.

“Secondly: Knox; whose guilt, equally, could only be assumed by means of eliminating my evidence, since I saw him at the window of my room at the time that the shot was fired.

“Thirdly: Madame de Stamer. Regarding this suspect, in the first place she could not have gained access to the tower room without assistance, and in the second place she was so passionately devoted to the late Colonel Menendez that Dr. Rolleston is of opinion that her reason may remain permanently impaired by the shock of his death. Fourthly and lastly: Miss Val Beverley.”

Over my own feelings, as he had uttered the girl’s name, I must pass in silence.

“Miss Val Beverley is the only one of the four suspects who is not in a position to establish a sound alibi so far as I can see at the moment; but in this case entire absence of motive renders the suspicion absurd. Having dealt with the known occupants, I shall not touch upon the possibility that some stranger had gained access to the house. This opens up a province of speculation which we must explore at greater leisure, for it would be profitless to attempt such an exploration now.”

Thus the gathering had broken up, Inspector Aylesbury returning to Market Hilton to make his report and to release Colin Camber and Ah Tsong, and Wessex to seek his quarters at the Lavender Arms.

I remember that having seen them off, Harley and I stood in the hall, staring at one another in a very odd way, and so we stood when Val Beverley came quietly from Madame de Stamer’s room and spoke to us.

“Pedro has told me what you have done, Mr. Harley,” she said in a low voice. “Oh, thank God you have cleared him. But what, in Heaven’s name, does your new discovery mean?”

“You may well ask,” Harley answered, grimly. “If my first task was a hard one, that which remains before me looks more nearly hopeless than anything I have ever been called upon to attempt.”

“It is horrible, it is horrible,” said the girl, shudderingly. “Oh, Mr. Knox,” she turned to me, “I have felt all along that there was some stranger in the house—— ”

“You have told me so.”

“Conundrums! Conundrums!” muttered Harley, irritably. “Where am I to begin, upon what am I to erect any