“He’s lying on his back now; but after he was shot he lay on his left side till rigor mortis set in,” he pointed out.
The Inspector examined the body carefully.
“I think I see how you get that,” he said. “This left arm’s off the ground a trifle. If he’d been shot here and fell in this position, the arm would have relaxed and followed the lie of the ground. Is that it?”
“Yes, that and the hypostases. You see the marks on the left side of the face.”
“A dead man doesn’t shift himself,” the Inspector observed with an oracular air. “Someone else must have had a motive for dragging him about.”
“Here’s a revolver,” Sir Clinton pointed out, picking it up gingerly to avoid marking it with fingerprints. “You can see, later on, if anything’s to be made out from it.”
He put the revolver carefully down on a part of the ruined wall near at hand and then returned to the body.
“To judge by the rigor mortis,” he said, after making a test, “he must have been dead for a good while—a dozen hours or more.”
“What about that shot that the keeper said he heard?” queried Armadale.
“The time might fit well enough. But rigor mortis is no real criterion, you know, Inspector. It varies too much from case to case.”
Inspector Armadale pulled out a small magnifying glass and examined the dead man’s hand carefully.
“Those were his fingerprints on that Japanese sword right enough, sir,” he pointed out. “You can see that tiny scar on the thumb quite plainly if you look.”
He held out the glass, and Sir Clinton inspected the right thumb of the body minutely.
“I didn’t doubt it from the evidence you had before, Inspector; but this certainly clinches it. The scar’s quite clear.”
“Shall I go through the pockets now?” Armadale asked.
“You may as well,” Sir Clinton agreed.
Inspector Armadale began by putting his fingers into the body’s waistcoat pocket. As he did so his face showed his surprise.
“Hullo! Here’s something!”
He pulled out the object and held it up for Sir Clinton’s inspection.
“One of the Leonardo medallions,” Sir Clinton said, as soon as he had identified the thing. “Let me have a closer look at it, Inspector.”
He examined the edge with care.
“This seems to be the genuine article, Inspector. I can’t see any hole in the edge, which they told me was drilled to distinguish the replicas from the real thing. No, there’s no mark of any sort here.”
He handed it back to the Inspector, who examined it in his turn. Sir Clinton took it back when the Inspector had done with it, and placed it in his pocket.
“I think, Inspector, we’ll say nothing about this find for the present. I’ve an idea it may be a useful thing to have up our sleeve before we’ve done. By the way, do you still connect Foxton Polegate with this case?”
Armadale looked the Chief Constable in the eye as he replied.
“I’m more inclined to connect Cecil Chacewater with it, just now, sir. Look at the facts. It’s been common talk that there was ill-feeling between those two brothers. Servants talk; and other people repeat it. And the business that ended in the final row between the two of them was centred in these Leonardo medallions. That’s worth thinking over. Then, again, Cecil Chacewater disappeared for a short while. You couldn’t get in touch with him. And it was just at that time that queer things began to happen here at Ravensthorpe. Where was he then? It seems a bit suggestive, doesn’t it? And where was he last night? If you looked at him this morning, you couldn’t help seeing he’d spent a queer night, wherever he spent it. That was the night when this body was brought here from wherever the shooting was done. And when you asked Cecil Chacewater how he’d come home, he said he’d arrived by the first train this morning. That was a lie. He didn’t come by that train. He’d been here before that.”
To the Inspector’s amazement and disgust Sir Clinton laughed unaffectedly at this exposition.
“It’s nothing to laugh at, sir. You can’t deny these things. I don’t say they prove anything; but you can’t brush them aside by merely laughing at them. They’ve got to be explained. And until they’ve been explained in some satisfactory way things will look very fishy.”
Sir Clinton recovered his serious mask.
“Perhaps I laughed a little too soon, Inspector. I apologize. I’m not absolutely certain of my ground; I quite admit that. But I’ll just give you one hint. Sometimes one case looks as if it were two independent affairs. Sometimes two independent affairs get interlocked and look like one case. Now just think that over carefully. It’s perhaps got the germ of something in it, if you care to fish it out.”
“Half of what you’ve said already sounds like riddles to me, sir,” Armadale protested, fretfully. “I’m never sure when you’re serious and when you’re pulling my leg.”
Sir Clinton was saved from the embarrassment of a reply by the arrival of Cecil Chacewater. He nodded curtly to the two officials as he came up. The Inspector stepped forward to meet him.
“I’d like to put one or two questions to you, Mr. Chacewater,” he said, ignoring the look on Sir Clinton’s face.
Cecil looked Armadale up and down before replying.
“Well, go on,” he said, shortly.
“First of all, Mr. Chacewater,” the Inspector began, “I want to know when you last saw your brother alive.”
Cecil replied without the slightest hesitation:
“On the morning I left Ravensthorpe. We’d had a disagreement and I left the house.”
“That was the last time you saw him?”
“No. I see him now.”
The Inspector looked up angrily from his notebook.
“You’re giving the impression of quibbling, Mr. Chacewater.”
“I’m answering your questions, Inspector, to the best of my ability.”
Armadale made a fresh cast.
“Where did you go when you left Ravensthorpe?”
“To London.”
“You’ve been in London, then, until this morning?”
Cecil paused for a moment or two before answering.
“May I ask, Inspector, whether you’re
