“Did you know about this?” I said.
“No,” he replied. “Not a glimmer. The Inspector has been busy.”
Annie’s evidence was as follows. On Friday evening she had been sent down into the village by Fitch, the butler. She had returned just after nine o’clock, and as she entered the grounds of the Manor she was amazed to see a man walking on the flower-bed directly outside the billiard room window.
Dr. Anselm.—“What exactly did he appear to be doing?”
“Nothing! Only walking across the bed.”
“Can you describe him?”
The witness shook her head. “No, sir—not very well. He seemed to disappear very quickly as I drew nearer to the house itself. But there was something a little peculiar about his walk.”
“In what way peculiar?”
Annie Dennis hesitated. “I can’t rightly say, sir, it just didn’t seem ordinary-like—not free and easy.”
“Do you mean that he limped in some way or was lame?”