“I heard something,” said Underhill, “but I really don’t know what it was.”
“I know what it was,” replied the detective, “it was a rather heavy revolver, fired twice, followed by a cry for help. And it came straight out of the back garden of Mr. Justice Gwynne, that paradise of peace and legality.”
He looked up and down the street sharply and then added:
“And the only gate of the back garden is half a mile round on the other side. I wish this wall were a little lower, or I were a little lighter; but it’s got to be tried.”
“It is lower a little farther on,” said Underhill, “and there seems to be a tree that looks helpful.”
They moved hastily along and found a place where the wall seemed to stoop abruptly, almost as if it had half-sunk into the earth; and a garden tree, flamboyant with the gayest garden blossom, straggled out of the dark enclosure and was gilded by the gleam of a solitary street-lamp. Bagshaw caught the crooked branch and threw one leg over the low wall; and the next moment they stood knee-deep amid the snapping plants of a garden border.
The garden of Mr. Justice Gwynne by night was rather a singular spectacle. It was large and lay on the empty edge of the suburb, in the shadow of a tall, dark house that was the last in its line of houses. The house was literally dark, being shuttered and unlighted, at least on the side overlooking the garden. But the garden itself, which lay in its shadow and should have been a tract of absolute darkness, showed a random glitter, like that of fading fireworks; as if a giant rocket had fallen in fire among the trees. As they advanced they were able to locate it as the light of several coloured lamps, entangled in the trees like the jewel fruits of Aladdin, and especially as the light from a small, round lake or pond, which gleamed with pale colours as if a lamp were kindled under it.
“Is he having a party?” asked Underhill. “The garden seems to be illuminated.”
“No,” answered Bagshaw. “It’s a hobby of his, and I believe he prefers to do it when he’s alone. He likes playing with a little plant of electricity that he works from that bungalow or hut over there, where he does his work and keeps his papers. Buller, who knows him very well, says the coloured lamps are rather more often a sign he’s not to be disturbed.”
“Sort of red danger signals,” suggested the other.
“Good Lord! I’m afraid they are danger signals!” and he began suddenly to run.
A moment after Underhill saw what he had seen. The opalescent ring of light, like the halo of the moon, round the sloping sides of the pond, was broken by two black stripes or streaks which soon proved themselves to be the long, black legs of a figure fallen head downwards into the hollow, with the head in the pond.
“Come on,” cried the detective sharply, “that looks to me like—”
His voice was lost, as he ran on across the wide lawn, faintly luminous in the artificial light, making a beeline across the big garden for the pool and the fallen figure. Underhill was trotting steadily in that straight track, when something happened that startled him for the moment. Bagshaw, who was travelling as steadily as a bullet towards the black figure by the luminous pool, suddenly turned at a sharp angle and began to run even more rapidly towards the shadow of the house. Underhill could not imagine what he meant by the altered direction. The next moment, when the detective had vanished into the shadow of the house, there came out of that obscurity the sound of a scuffle and a curse; and Bagshaw returned lugging with him a little struggling man with red hair. The captive had evidently been escaping under the shelter of the building, when the quicker ears of the detective had heard him rustling like a bird among the bushes.
“Underhill,” said the detective, “I wish you’d run on and see what’s up by the pool. And now, who are you?” he asked, coming to a halt. “What’s your name?”
“Michael Flood,” said the stranger in a snappy fashion. He was an unnaturally lean little man, with a hooked nose too large for his face, which was colourless, like parchment, in contrast with the ginger colour of his hair. “I’ve got nothing to do with this. I found him lying dead and I was scared; but I only came to interview him for a paper.”
“When you interview celebrities for the Press,” said Bagshaw, “do you generally climb over the garden wall?”
And he pointed grimly to a trail of footprints coming and going along the path towards the flower bed.
The man calling himself Flood wore an expression equally grim.
“An interviewer might very well get over the wall,” he said, “for I couldn’t make anybody hear at the front door. The servant had gone out.”
“How do you know he’d gone out?” asked the detective suspiciously.
“Because,” said Flood, with an almost unnatural calm, “I’m not the only person who gets over garden walls. It seems just possible that you did it yourself. But, anyhow, the servant did; for I’ve just this moment seen him drop over the wall, away on the other side of the garden, just by the garden door.”
“Then why didn’t he used the garden door?” demanded the cross-examiner.
“How should I know?” retorted Flood. “Because it was shut, I suppose. But you’d better ask him, not me; he’s coming towards the house at this minute.”
There was, indeed, another shadowy figure beginning to be visible through the fire-shot gloaming, a squat, square-headed figure, wearing a red waistcoat as the most conspicuous part of a rather shabby livery. He appeared to be making
