The Hand in the Dark

by Arthur J. Rees

"I'll have a look at this door later. And now, we had better get to work. We have got to catch this murderer pretty quickly, or the press and the public will be up in arms. He's had too long a start already. You must make up your mind for considerable public indignation about that, Caldew."

"I do not see how I can be held responsible for the murderer getting away," said Caldew, in an aggrieved tone. "He had his start before I arrived. I did everything that I could. I searched the house inside and out, and Sergeant Lumbe has been scouring the country-side since daybreak looking for suspicious characters."

"I am not blaming you, Caldew," responded Merrington, but his voice suggested the reverse of his words. "I am merely pointing out to you the way the British public will look at it. They will say, 'Here is a young wife murdered in the bosom of her home and family, and the murderer gets right away. What do we pay the detective force for? To let murderers escape?' Mark my words, if we don't lay our hands on this chap quickly, we'll have the whole of the London press howling at our heels like a pack of wolves. Half a dozen special reporters travelled down in the train with me and pestered me with questions all the way. They are coming along here later for a statement for the evening editions. But never mind the journalists—let us get to work without further loss of time. Have you made a list of all the guests who have been stopping in the house?"

"Not yet. Here is a sketch plan of the moat-house interior and the grounds which you may find useful."

"Thanks. You had better prepare a list of the guests before they leave. They are sure to get away as fast as possible, and we may want to interview some of them later on. Now we had better have a look at the body."

They went upstairs to the bedroom. There they found a young man, with a freckled face and a snub nose, packing up a photographic apparatus. He was the photographer, and he had been taking photographs of the dead body.

"Finished?" inquired Merrington. "That's right. Then you and Freeling had better return to London by the next train—you'll be wanted in that Putney case."

The photographer and the finger-print expert left the room together, and Merrington walked across to the bed. He drew away the sheet which covered the dead girl, and bent over the body, examining it closely, but without touching it.

"The corpse has not been moved, I suppose?" he remarked to Caldew, who was standing beside him.

"Not since I arrived. But she may not have been shot in that position. She lived some minutes afterwards, and may have moved slightly—not much, I should say, for there are no marks of bloodstains on any other part of the bed."