She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it was, he knew she understood and appreciated.
Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.
“I’ve been too stunned till now to grasp what’s happened,” he said in a moment. “Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!”
He had said exactly the right thing now.
“He certainly was mine!” she said.
“And mine too. We may live to be a brace of Methuselahs, but I guess we’ll never see his like again!”
His odd phrase made her smile for a moment despite herself. It passed swiftly and she said:
“I can’t believe it yet.”
Again there was silence, and then he said abruptly:
“It’s little wonder you can’t believe it. The thing is so extraordinary. It’s incredible. A man without an enemy in the world—no robbery attempted—sitting in his own library—in just about the most peaceful and out of the way county in Scotland—not a sound heard by anybody—not a reason that one can possibly imagine—and yet murdered!”
“But it must have been a robber surely!”
“Why didn’t he rob something then?”
“But how else—?”
“How indeed! You’ve not a suspicion of anyone yourself, Miss Farmond? Say it right out if you have. We don’t lynch here. At least,” he corrected himself as he recalled the telegraph posts, “it hasn’t been done yet.”
“I can’t suspect anyone!” she said earnestly. “I never met anyone in my life that I could possibly imagine doing such a thing!”
“No,” he said. “I guess our experiences have been pretty different. I’ve met lots, but then there are none of those boys here. Who is there in this place?”
He paused and stared into space.
“It must have been a tramp—someone who doesn’t belong here!”
“I was trying to think whether there are any lunatics about,” he said in a moment. “But there aren’t any.”
There was silence for some minutes. He was thinking; she never moved. Then he heard a sound, and looking down saw that she had her handkerchief in her hand. He had nearly bent over her before he remembered Sir Malcolm, and at the recollection he said abruptly:
“Well, I’ve disturbed you too long. If I can do anything—anything whatever, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“You are very, very kind,” she murmured, and a note in her voice nearly made him forget the new baronet. In fact, he had to retire rather quickly to be sure of himself.
The efficiency of James Bisset was manifest at every conjuncture. Businesslike and brisk he appeared from somewhere as Cromarty reached the hall, and led him from the front regions to the butler’s sitting room.
“I will bring your lunch in a moment, sir,” he murmured, and vanished briskly.
The room looked out on a courtyard at the back, and through the window Ned could see against the opposite buildings the rain driving in clouds. In the court the wind was eddying, and beneath some door he could hear it drone insistently. Though the toughest of men, he shivered a little and drew up a wicker chair close in front of the fire.
“It’s incredible!” he murmured, and as he stared at the flames this thought seemed to haunt him all the time.
Bisset laid the table and another hour passed. Ned ate a little lunch and then smoked and stared at the fire while the wind droned and blustered without ceasing, and occasionally a cross gust sent the rain drops softly pattering on the panes.
“I’m damned if I see a thing!” he suddenly exclaimed half aloud, and jumped to his feet.
Before he had time to start for the door, Bisset’s mysterious efficiency was made manifest again. Precisely as he was wanted, he appeared, and this time it was clear that his own efforts had not been altogether fruitless. He had in fact an air of even greater complacency than usual.
“I have arrived at certain conclusions, sir,” he announced.
XIII
The Deductive Process
Bisset laid on the table a sheet of note paper.
“Here,” said he, “is a kin’ of bit sketch plan of the library. Observing this plan attentively, you will notice two crosses, marked A and B. A is where yon wee table was standing—no the place against the wall where it was standing this morning, but where it was standing before it was knocked over last night. B is where the corp was found. You follow that, sir?”
Ned nodded.
“I follow,” said he.
“Now, the principle in a’ these cases of crime and detection,” resumed the philosopher, assuming his lecturer’s air, “is noticing such sma’ points of detail as escape the eye of the ordinar’ observer, taking full and accurate measurements, making a plan with the principal sites carefully markit, and drawing, as it were, logical conclusions. Applying this method now to the present instance, Mr. Cromarty, the first point to observe is that the room is twenty-six feet long, measured from the windie, which is a bit recessed or set back, as it were, to the other end of the apartment. Half of 26 is 13, and if you take the halfway line and draw approximate perpendiculars to about where the table was standing and to as near as one can remember where the middle of the corp roughly was lying, you get exactly six feet ten and five-eighths inches, in both cases.”
“An approximate perpendicular to roughly about these places gives this exact measurement?” repeated Cromarty gravely. “Well, what next?”
“Well, sir, I’ll not insist too much on the coincidence, but it seems to me vera remarkable. But the two significant features of this case seem to me yon table being upset over by the windie and the corp being found over by the door.”
“You’re talking horse sense now,” murmured Ned.
“Now, yon table was upset by Sir Reginald falling on it!”
Ned looked at him keenly.
“How do you know?”
“Because one of
