Anthony appeared to disregard the last remark and went on. “Then I set to work on another point. You remember the condition of the ink in front of where the dead man was found?” Goodall frowned an affirmative. “I had a strong impression, Inspector, that I should find some weapon—near at hand—in the garden in all probability, from which that débris had come. I was right in that impression.”
Goodall sat up straight in his chair. “You don’t mean to say——”
Anthony knocked the ash from the end of his cigar. “I’m confident that I have found the weapon with which Mr. Stewart was killed. It’s a sharp jagged piece of stone that once formed part of the path leading from the Assynton Lodge rockery. At the present moment, I believe, it resides somewhere in the library where Daventry has concealed it.”
“That’s risky, Mr. Bathurst, supposing——!”
“It’s quite safe there, Inspector. Daventry fished it up from the pool where the murderer had slung it. Acting upon my instructions, of course—I showed him where to look for it.”
Goodall’s eyes widened with amazement and incredulity. “But where’s all this leading to—I’m getting bewildered!”
“Sit still, Inspector,” went on Anthony, “I haven’t quite finished yet. The curtain isn’t up for the third act yet—then there’s still the fourth to come.” He pushed his fingers into the left-hand pocket of his waistcoat. “The bullet that Stewart fired at his murderer, Inspector—take a good look at it!” He tossed it across, nonchalantly.
Goodall’s eyes almost started from his head as he handled the little messenger of Death. “And how the hell did you find this, Mr. Bathurst, and where?”
Anthony smiled at the Inspector’s astonishment. “I was convinced that Stewart had fired his revolver on the fatal night, so it was fairly conclusive to me that the bullet should be in the library somewhere. I tried to reconstruct the whole scene as I had imagined it! The result of this little attempt at reconstruction brought me round about the bookcase. Eventually, Daventry and I found a book—embedded in this particular book was the bullet you are now holding.”
Goodall sank back in his chair with the appearance of a man who, after repeated and ineffectual struggling and striving, at last reluctantly bows to Fate and accepts the inevitable. “You’ll tell me you’ve arrested the murderer next, Mr. Bathurst! When are you starting on the Hanover Galleries case?” His mouth might have been described as cynical.