“Horrible enough!” said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and the terrible marks which surrounded it. “I’ve never seen such injuries since the Birlstone railway smash.”
“But, I say,” remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common sense was still pondering the open window. “It’s all very well your saying that a man escaped by wading this moat, but what I ask you is, how did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was up?”
“Ah, that’s the question,” said Barker.
“At what o’clock was it raised?”
“It was nearly six o’clock,” said Ames, the butler.
“I’ve heard,” said the sergeant, “that it was usually raised at sunset. That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year.”
“Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea,” said Ames. “I couldn’t raise it until they went. Then I wound it up myself.”
“Then it comes to this,” said the sergeant: “If anyone came from outside—if they did—they must have got in across the bridge before six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the room after eleven.”
“That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That brought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got away through the window and left his gun behind him. That’s how I read it; for nothing else will fit the facts.”