Getting out of the car, they made their way along the by-lane for a short distance, and, as they came to the garden gate, Armadale hailed the constable. Sapcote had been sitting on a wooden chair beside the body, reading a newspaper to while away the time; but at the sound of the inspector’s voice he rose and came forward along the flagged path.
“Things have been left just as they were, I suppose?” Armadale demanded.
Sapcote confirmed this and at once fell into the background, evidently realising that he had nothing to report which would interest the inspector. He contented himself with following the proceedings of his superior with the closest interest, possibly with a view to retailing them later to his friends in the village.
Armadale stepped up the paved path and knelt down beside the body, which was lying—as the doctor had described it—face downwards with the arms extended above the head.
“H’m! Looks as if he’d just stumbled and come down on his face,” the inspector commented. “No signs of any struggle, anyhow.”
He cast a glance at the paved path.
“There’s not much chance of picking up tracks on that,” he said disparagingly.
Wendover and Sir Clinton had come round to the head of the body and the chief constable bent down to examine the wrists. Armadale also leaned over; and Wendover had some difficulty in getting a glimpse over their shoulders. Constable Sapcote hovered uncertainly in the rear, evidently anxious to see all he could, but afraid to attract the inspector’s attention by pushing forward. Wendover inferred that Armadale must have a reputation as a disciplinarian.
“There seem to be marks of a sort,” the inspector admitted grudgingly, after a brief study of the skin. “Whether they mean anything in particular’s another matter. He might have had a fall at the gate and banged his wrists against a bar; and then he might have got up and staggered on until he fell here and died.”
Sir Clinton had been studying the marks with more deliberation. He shook his head at the inspector’s suggestion.
“The gate-bars are rounded, if you look at them. Now at one point this mark—see it?—shows a sharp line on the flesh. It’s only at one place, I admit; the rest of the marking is more like something produced by general pressure. But still, you can’t mistake that bit there.”
Armadale reexamined the mark with more care before replying.
“I see what you mean,” he admitted.
“Then go and try your own arm against the gate-bars and I think you’ll admit it won’t work.”
The inspector moved off to the gate, slipped his sleeve up, and pressed his forearm hard against the most convenient bar. While he was thus engaged, Wendover stooped down to examine the markings for himself.
“What made you so ready with gate-bars, Clinton?” he inquired. “I never noticed what sort of a gate it was when I came in.”
“Obvious enough. Here’s a man been falling. Marks on his wrists. We learned that from the doctor. Naturally when I heard it, I began to wonder if he hadn’t fallen against something; and as soon as we got out of the car, I kept my eye open for anything that Hay could have bruised himself on. The gate-bars seemed a likely thing, so I noted them in passing. One keeps one’s eyes open, squire. But as soon as I saw this”—he indicated the edge on the marking where the indentation in the flesh was almost straight—“I gave the gate-bars the go-by. They couldn’t have done it.”
He glanced up.
“Satisfied, inspector?”
Armadale removed his arm from the bar, examined the mark left on it by the pressure, and nodded gloomily.
“This didn’t do it. It leaves a mark deep in the middle and fading out on each side.”
He came back to the body and scanned the mark once more.
“This thing on the wrist hasn’t got any middle. It’s fairly even, except for that sharp section.”
A thought seemed to strike him and he pulled a magnifying glass from his pocket, adjusted the focus, and made a minute inspection of the dead man’s wrist.
“I thought it might have been a rope,” he explained as he put away his lens with a disappointed air. “But there’s no regular pattern there such as a rope leaves. What do you think of it, Sir Clinton?”
“Got a piece of chalk in your pocket, inspector?” the chief constable inquired.
Armadale’s face showed some astonishment, which he endeavoured to conceal as well as he could.
“No, Sir Clinton, I haven’t.”
“Are you thinking of bringing a photographer up here to take a souvenir picture?”
The inspector considered for a moment or two.
“No,” he said at last. “I don’t see much use in that. The body’s lying quite naturally, isn’t it?”
“It looks like it; but one never knows.”
Sir Clinton’s fingers went mechanically to his waistcoat pocket.
“No chalk, you said, inspector?”
“No, I haven’t any.”
“Ah, and yet some people tell you that playing pool is a waste of time; and that the habit of chalking your cue and then pocketing the chalk is reprehensible. We now confound them.”
He produced a cube of billiard-chalk as he spoke and, taking out a penknife, trimmed the paper away.
“Just chalk around the outline of the body, please, inspector. This paved path will show the marks excellently. If we need the marks later on, we can always lay some boards over them to keep the rain off.”
While the inspector, obviously much against the grain, was chalking his lines, Sir Clinton turned to the constable.
“Perhaps you could give us some help, constable. Did you know Peter Hay?”
“Knew him well, sir.”
“You can’t throw any light on this business?”
“No, sir. It’s amazing to me, sir, if there’s anything in what the doctor says.”
“Ah! And what does the doctor say?”
“Swears it’s foul play somehow, sir.”
“Indeed? He didn’t go so far as that when he spoke to me about it.”
The constable seemed rather confused to find himself taken so literally.
“Didn’t quite mean that, sir. What I meant was I could see from his manner that something’s amiss.”
Sapcote, conscious that he had let
