“Ampelopsis Veitchii, though one of the commonest forms of creeper, is also one of the most tender. A sharp blow upon the main branch of a shoot: means death to that shoot within a few hours. The dead piece of creeper I refer to was, I thought at first, at that point on the wall where it might have been struck by the feet of a man of middle height climbing out of either of the first-floor windows over the open one of the study at the moment when he was clutching the sill with one or both hands and hanging with arms bent.
“It was, I saw, clearly impossible for the murderer to have dropped from the upper window on to the sill of the open study window and so miraculously to have retained his balance that he did not fall on to the flowerbed. Also—in spite of the novelists—there are few drainpipes which can be used to climb by. This drainpipe is no exception. Fingers could not be clasped round it; neither would it support more than a five or six-stone weight. It was clear, therefore, that the murderer, in descending the wall, had used something to climb down—probably a rope. (Descent of the wall was another confirmation of the theory that the murderer was of the house.)
“It will have been noticed that I have used the masculine personal pronoun to describe the murderer. Dr. Fowler’s statement at the inquest, which I quoted earlier, would allow, given insanity, of equal rights to women. But I felt, from the beginning, that John Hoode had been killed by a man, and I worked throughout on that assumption. At every turn little things told me that this was a man’s work; and I was finally satisfied when I accepted the theory of descent by the wall.
“I will bring to an end here the first part of this report. But before starting upon the next, I will summarise the conclusions already shown, give them life with a touch of imagination, and let you see the picture.
“The murder was committed by a man who, if not completely mad, was at least insane in his hatred of Hoode and Hoode’s. He was at the time of the murder an inmate of Abbotshall. He effected entrance to the study that night by letting himself down from the more easterly of the first-floor windows over the most easterly of the study windows. He spoke to Hoode, jokingly explaining his unceremonious entry. By some pretext (it would, you know, be easy enough) he got behind Hoode as he sat at his big table. Then he struck.
“His object achieved, he carries out the plan he has been hatching for weeks. He sets the scene, overturning chairs, spilling papers, dragging the body to the hearth—and all as quietly as you please. He steps back, to regard with pleasure the result of his labours.
“He overturns the clock, having moved the sofa to rest it upon. He moves back the hands of the clock until they stand at 10:45. A quarter to eleven, mark you! Not ten to, not twenty to, not twenty-three and a half minutes to—but a quarter to!
“He gives a hasty glance round the room. Everything is in order. He thrusts his head cautiously from the window. All is as he had calculated: there is nobody about; the night is sufficiently dark. He goes up his rope again and through that first-floor window.
II
“Having established our criminal as at least a monomaniac and an inhabitant—permanent or temporary—of the house, let us go further into detail.
“First, as regards the fingerprints of which so much has been heard and so few have been seen.
“Everyone is satisfied that the murderer wore gloves, because nowhere else in the study, where he must have handled one thing after another, were any fingerprints found. They are found, these important pieces of evidence, upon the one object where their presence is utterly damning—and there only!
“The spirals, whorls, and what-nots which compose these marks correspond exactly with those to be found in the skin and thumb and first two fingers of Archibald Deacon’s right hand. Ergo, say Police and Public, Archibald Deacon is the murderer. But I say that these fingerprints go a long way to prove (even without the rest of my evidence) that Deacon cannot be the murderer.
“Here is the one really clever murder (of those discovered) committed within the last fifteen years. Yet, if one take the popular view, one has to believe that the murderer, who was wise enough to wear gloves during the greater part of the time he was in the study, actually removed one of them and carefully pressed his thumb and fingers upon the highly receptive surface of his weapon’s handle before leaving that weapon in a nice easy place for the first policemen to find!
“Surely the fallacy of blindly accepting as the murderer the man who made those prints is obvious? Consider the position of the marks. They point down the handle, towards the blade! It is almost incredible that at any time would the murderer have held the weapon as a Regency buck dandled his tasselled cane.
“My difficulty was to reconcile with Deacon’s innocence of the murder the presence of his fingerprints upon the tool with which it was committed. That the prints were his I had too much respect for the efficacy of the Scotland Yard system to
