“Deacon was a twelfth man. Before I had seen him, my views were beginning to differ from those of Scotland Yard: after I had seen and spoken with him they became directly opposed. It became my business to prove, in spite of all difficulties, that this man, whatever the appearances, had had no hand in the death of John Hoode. In what follows, they who read will find, I hope, absolute proof of his innocence; or if not that, at least a battering-ram to shake the tower of their belief in his guilt.
“Knowing that Deacon was not the murderer, I nevertheless realised that his innocence—so strong was the case against him—could only be established by definite proof that someone else was. That is to say: a negative defence would be useless.
“It will be seen, then, that the divergence of my opinions from those of the Crown began almost at the outset of my investigation.
“Let us go back to the study at Abbotshall. On each of the numbered points I gave earlier, I agreed with Superintendent Boyd. Where I began to—had to—disagree was concerning their implication of Deacon. Points (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) can be left alone; they will fit my murderer as well as, or better than, they fit Deacon. The remaining two, however, must be dealt with more fully.
“We will take (v) first. The obvious fact that strength far above the normal was behind the blows that killed Hoode was a perfect link in the chain of circumstantial evidence against the gigantic Deacon. But at the inquest, Dr. Fowler, the divisional surgeon, said: ‘The wounds were inflicted so far as I can judge, either by a man three times stronger than the average or by a person of either sex who was insane and had the terrible strength of the insane.’
“Having to find an alternative to Deacon and having determined to cling to my theory that the murderer was an inhabitant—permanent or temporary—of the house, my choice of Dr. Fowler’s alternative was a man or woman mentally unbalanced. This choice was not, as it might at first seem, a drawback; rather was it the reverse. For one of my first impressions had been that there was something of terrible senselessness about the whole affair, and this impression had increased a thousandfold when I saw the battered head of the dead man. Madness was my first thought then. Those blows—four of them, mark you! when the first had been obviously sufficient—surely spoke of madness; either the lust for blood and destruction of a confirmed homicidal maniac or the consummation of a hatred so deadly, so complete in its possession of the hater, as to constitute of itself insanity.
“The second was the theory I adopted. For, believing the murderer to be an inmate of the house, it was clear that I must look for one whose insanity was not of a type apparent to the world.
“Now for point (vi)—the entry by the window. As I have said, I agreed with the police that the murderer did enter by the window; but there our agreement ceased. It is a point in the crown’s case against Deacon that his are the only legs in the house long enough to enable their owner to clear the flowerbed in stepping from the flagged path to the low sill of the study window. This, I am sure, is, as evidence against Deacon, more than useless. I have not taken measurements, but it is obvious that even for his long legs, a step right into the study would be impossible. This being so, the fact that he could step on to the windowsill is of no importance whatever. For one thing, it would have been extremely difficult for him to retain balance; for another, if he had retained his balance, the necessary scrabbling at the window and the twisting and turning he would have had to perform to get legs and then body into the room would have attracted Hoode’s attention before he could see enough of the intruder to recognise him. And then the theory, agreed by the police, that Hoode did not rise from, or anyhow did not remain long out of, his chair, falls to the ground.
“Now let us get back to my murderer. Yes, he got in by the window; but he left the flowerbed unmarked. Now, as he is a member of the household we know that his legs cannot be as long as Deacon’s. How, then, did he approach the window?
“He must have (a) jumped over the flowerbed and into the room; (b) stepped on the flowerbed, but, on leaving, repaired or disguised the damage he had done; or (c) got his feet on to the sill and his whole self into the room without having crossed the flowerbed.
“It is almost impossible that he should have done (a); (b) is unlikely, since after the murder the murderer had no time to spare. (This is proved later.) One is left, then, with the conviction that the real answer lies in (c). This means either that the murderer erupted through the floor or walls of the study or that he descended the wall of the house and entered the open study window without ever reaching the earth in his journey. (Entrance through the door is barred. Remember, we are taking Poole’s evidence on that point as reliable.)
“As the murderer was presumably flesh and blood and there was no hole in walls or floor, I fastened on the ‘descent’ theory, which was subsequently confirmed by an examination of the wall outside and above the open study window. Over this wall—over the whole house, in fact—the commonest
