“Tell me the details, Mr. Stewart, as far as you are able.” Stewart shook his head.
“I know very little. The maid who does the library every morning was amazed this morning to find the door locked. She couldn’t understand it, so she informed Butterworth, the butler. He went along and found that what she had reported was correct. He sought me out and we found Mr. Llewellyn, my father’s secretary. We went to my father’s bedroom. It was empty—the bed had not been slept in. So we decided to burst open the library door. You can see for yourselves how we found my father. I immediately telephoned for you and for Doctor Gunner.”
“The door was locked, you say. Where was the key?”
“In the lock—on the inside.”
Clegg strolled across to the French doors that opened on to the garden. “These are fastened all right. All the bolts are shot.” He stooped down and examined them.
“By gum—that’s funny. How did the murderer escape? Bit of a puzzle—eh?”
Stewart saw the drift of his remarks. “Extraordinary, isn’t it?” he ventured.
Clegg walked over to the desk and looked at it carefully. Beside the dead man’s hand there rested a sheet of notepaper. The Sergeant took it up. “Looks as though this is what he was writing when the blow fell,” he suggested.
Scrawled on the paper were the words, “Urgent in the morning! M. L.” “This your father’s handwriting, Mr. Stewart?” he asked.
The young man looked over his shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “Without a doubt—although it looks to me as though it had been written very hurriedly or in a moment of extreme agitation—it isn’t as firm as usual.”