“Don’t worry Mr. Stewart, Daventry,” said Anthony gravely. “Let him tell us as I suggested.”
Stewart proceeded to tell the story of his father’s death. Soon came Bathurst’s first interruption.
“You say that when you burst open the door the key was in the lock on the inside and also that the French doors were shut and bolted?” Anthony leaned forward across the dinner table and pointed his query with keen interest.
“Yes, Mr. Bathurst. Extraordinary though it may sound—the facts were so.”
Anthony rubbed his hands together. “Most interesting,” he muttered, “most interesting. Go on.”
“My poor father,” continued Stewart with evident distress, “was seated in his chair at his desk-table—his head on his hands—his skull badly smashed—he had been dead some hours—struck down in some foul, dastardly way from behind.” He stopped and tried to control his feelings, which were obviously beginning to master him. After a short interval of silence—sympathetically observed by the two others—he continued again. “Apparently he had been writing when he was attacked, for a pen had almost fallen from his hand and on the desk in front of him lay a sheet of note-paper. On it had been written the words, ‘Urgent in the morning, M. L.’ ”
Anthony shot his second question across to the speaker. “In your father’s handwriting, Mr. Stewart?”
“Beyond doubt, Mr. Bathurst.” Anthony waved to him to proceed.
“In the left-hand pocket of my father’s dressing-gown was his revolver—loaded in five chambers only. None of us can remember hearing a shot during the night, so that we don’t know when the one shot was fired—in the night or on some previous occasion.”
Anthony stopped him with his hand uplifted.