The dead man lay on his back, sprawling with outstretched limbs in the centre of the room. He was clad only in a pink dressing gown, which covered his night clothes. There were carpet slippers on his bare feet. The doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp which had stood on the table. One glance at the victim was enough to show the healer that his presence could be dispensed with. The man had been horribly injured. Lying across his chest was a curious weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers. It was clear that this had been fired at close range and that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous discharge more destructive.
The country policeman was unnerved and troubled by the tremendous responsibility which had come so suddenly upon him. “We will touch nothing until my superiors arrive,” he said in a hushed voice, staring in horror at the dreadful head.
“Nothing has been touched up to now,” said Cecil Barker. “I’ll answer for that. You see it all exactly as I found it.”
“When was that?” The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.
“It was just half-past eleven. I had not begun to undress, and I was sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report. It was not very loud — it seemed to be muffled. I rushed down — I don’t suppose it was thirty seconds before I was in the room.”
“Was the door open?”
Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him. His bedroom candle was burning on the table. It was I who lit the lamp some minutes afterward.”
“Did you see no one?”
No. I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I rushed out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight. Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, came and took her away. Ames had arrived, and we ran back into the room once more.”
“But surely I have heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night.”
“Yes, it was up until I lowered it.”
“Then how could any murderer have got away? It is out of the question! Mr. Douglas must have shot himself.”
“That was our first idea. But see!” Barker drew aside the curtain, and showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent. “And look at this!” He held the lamp down and illuminated a smudge of blood like the mark of a boot-sole upon the wooden sill. “Someone has stood there in getting out.”
“You mean that someone waded across the moat?”
“Exactly!”
“Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he must have been in the water at that very moment.”
“I have not a doubt of it. I wish to heaven that I had rushed to the window! But the curtain screened it, as you can see, and so it never occurred to me. Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could not let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible.”
“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.”