"No. It was some distance away from him. It looked as though it had been pitched over the balcony; I mean, it was too far away for him to have been carrying it."
The chief constable tapped his fingers on the table. A spiral of wrinkles ascended his leathery neck as he kept his head sideways, staring at Rampole.
"That point," he said, "may be of the utmost importance in the coroner's verdict between accident, suicide, or murder…. According to Dr. Markley, young Starberth's skull was fractured, either by the fall or by a heavy blow with what we generally term a blunt instrument; his neck was broken, and there were other contusions of a heavy fall. But we can go into that later…. What next, Mr. Rampole?"
"I stayed with him while Mr. Saunders went down to tell Dr. Fell and drive to Chatterham after Dr. Markley. I just waited, striking matches and — I mean, I just waited."
He shuddered.
"Thank you. Mr. Saunders?'
"There is little more to add, Sir Benjamin," Saunders returned; his mind on details. "I drove to Chatterham, after instructing Dr. Fell to telephone to the Hall, speak to Budge, the butler, and inform him what had happened…. "
"That fool―" Dr. Fell began explosively. As the rector glanced at him in shocked surprise he added: "Budge, I mean. Budge isn't worth a two-ounce bottle in a crisis. He repeated what I said over the phone, and — I heard somebody scream; and, instead of keeping it from Miss Starberth until somebody could tell her gently, she knew it that minute."
"As I was saying, Sir Benjamin — of course you're right, Doctor; it was most inopportune — as I was saying," the rector went on, with the air of a man trying to please several people at once, "I drove to get Dr. Markley, stopping only at the rectory to procure myself a raincoat; then we returned, taking Dr. Fell to the prison with us. After a brief examination, Dr. Markley said there was nothing to do but notify the police. We took the-the body to the Hall in my car.”
He seemed about to say more, but he shut his lips suddenly. There was an enormous pressure of silence, as though everyone had checked himself in the act of speaking, too. The chief constable had opened a large claspknife and begun to sharpen a pencil; the small quick rasps of the knife against lead were so loud that Sir Benjamin glanced up sharply.