"I am sorry," said Sir Oswald stiffly.
"Oh, it doesn't matter. I've been able to reconstruct things. There were your footprints, you see, leading up from the bottom of the garden, and a place where you had obviously stopped and stooped down, and a kind of dent in the grass which was highly suggestive. By the way, what was your theory of the pistol being there?"
"I presumed that it had been dropped by the man in his flight."
Battle shook his head.
"Not dropped, Sir Oswald. There are two points against that. To begin with, there is only one set of footprints crossing the lawn just there—your own."
"I see," said Sir Oswald thoughtfully.
"Can you be sure of that, Battle?" put in George.
"Quite sure, sir. There is one other set of tracks crossing the lawn, Miss Wade's, but they are a good deal farther to the left."
He paused, and then went on: "And there's the dent in the ground. The pistol must have struck the ground with some force. It all points to its having been thrown."
"Well, why not?" said Sir Oswald. "Say the man fled down the path to the left. He'd leave no footprints on the path and he'd hurl the pistol away from him into the middle of the lawn, eh, Lomax?"