‘Can’t have shot him-serf? What do you mean?’ ‘That’s what Dr Giles says,’ repeated Pollard. ‘He says it’s plumb impossible. He’s puzzled to death, the door being locked on the inside and the window bolted; but he sticks to it that the man couldn’t have committed suicide.’ That settled it. The further supply of bacon and eggs were waved aside, and a few minutes later we were all walking as fast as we could in the direction of Leigh House, Japp eagerly questioning the constable.
The name of the deceased was Walter Protheroe; he was a man of middle age and something of a recluse. He had come to Market Basing eight years ago and rented Leigh House, a rambling, dilapidated old mansion fast falling into ruin. He lived in a corner of it, his wants attended to by a housekeeper whom he had brought with him. Miss Clegg was her name, and she was a very superior woman and highly thought of in the village. Just lately Mr Protheroe had had visitors staying with him, a Mr and Mrs Parker from London. This morning, unable to get a reply when she went to call her master, and finding the door locked, Miss Clegg became alarmed, and telephoned for the police and the doctor. Constable Pollard and Dr Giles had arrived at the same moment. Their united efforts had succeeded in breaking down the oak door of his bedroom.
Mr Protheroe was lying on the floor, shot through the head, and the pistol was clasped in his right hand. It looked a clear case of suicide.
After examining the body, however, Dr Giles became clearly perplexed, and finally he drew the constable aside, and communicated his perplexities to him; whereupon Pollard had at once thought of Japp. Leaving the doctor in charge, he had hurried down to the inn.
By the time the constable’s recital was over, we had arrived at Leigh House, a big, desolate house surrounded by an unkempt, weed-ridden garden. The front door was open, and we passed at once into the hall and from there into a small morning-room whence proceeded the sound of voices. Four people were in the room: a somewhat flashily dressed man with a shifty, unpleasant face to whom I took an immediate dislike; a woman of much the same type, though handsome in a coarse fashion; another woman dressed in neat black who stood apart from the rest, and whom I took to be the housekeeper; and a tall man dressed in sporting tweeds, with a clever, capable face, and who was clearly in command of the situation.
‘Dr Giles,’ said the constable, ‘this is Detective-Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard, and his two friends.’ The doctor greeted us and made us known to Mr and Mrs
Parker. Then we accompanied him upstairs. Pollard, in obedience to a sign from Japp, remained below, as it were on guard over the household. The doctor led us upstairs and along a passage. A door was open at the end; splinters hung from the hinges, and the door itself had crashed to the floor inside the room.
We went in. The body was still lying on the floor. Mr Protheroe had been a man of middle age, bearded, with hair grey at the temples. Japp went and knelt by the body.
‘Why couldn’t you leave it as you found it?’ he grumbled.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
‘We thought it a clear case of suicide.’
‘H’mt’ said Japp. ‘Bullet entered the head behind the left ear.’ ‘Exactly,’ said the doctor. ‘Clearly impossible for him to have fired it himself. He’d have had to twist his hand right round his head. It couldn’t have been done.’
‘Yet you found the pistol clasped in his hand? Where is it, by the way?’
The doctor nodded to the table.
‘But it wasn’t clasped in his hand,’ he said. ‘It was inside the hand, but the fingers weren’t closed over it.’
‘Put there afterwards,’ said Japp; ‘that’s clear enough.’ He was examining the weapon. ‘One cartridge fired. We’ll test it for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll find any but yours, Dr Giles.
How long has he been dead?’
‘Some time last night. I can’t give the time to an hour or so, as thoe wonderful doctors in detective stories do. Roughly, he’s been dead about twelve hours.’