Dr. Fell, who had been cocking a thoughtful eye at the house along the left, seemed to repress a chuckle. He cast a surreptitious glance at the bishop, and observed dreamily:
"I say, you are in a most unfortunate position, I fear. The impression seems to be widespread that your conduct is at times, humf, a trifle erratic. Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Sir, I should be careful; very careful. It would be unfortunate, for instance, if other lapses occurred."
"I don't think I understand."
"Well, the colonel and I would be compelled to put you under restraint. It would exclude you from the case. It might get into the newspapers. Listen, Your Grace…" Dr. Fell's red face was very bland, and his eyes opened wide. "Let me warn you to walk very softly. Attend to those who want to speak, and what they say; and brush nothing aside as unimportant. Eh?"
Dr. Fell, it was obvious, had been struck with ah idea which he continued to ponder while the car turned through the lodge gates of The Grange. The iron gates were shut, and at the porter's lodge a large policeman was trying to maintain a Jovian unconsciousness of the little group of idlers that had gathered outside. He opened the gates at Standish's hail.
Tell you what," said Standish, 'I’ll drive on up to the house and tell 'em to make ready for you and get your luggage out. You fellows go along to the Guest House and look about. Join you shortly. The bishop knows where it is."
The bishop assented with great eagerness. He asked the policeman, sharply, whether anything had been touched, looked round him with satisfaction, and then sniffed the air like a hunter as he strode off across the lawn. The three of them, his son reflected, must have made a queer picture. Up beyond them, at the end of a shallow slope, the gables of the low, severely plain house were silhouetted on the yellow sky. Except for a border of elms on either side of the driveway curving up to it, all the ornamental trees were massed behind The Grange in an estate that must have covered eight thousand acres. The Grange was restored Tudor in design, full of tall windows, bearded in ivy, and built on three sides of a rectangle with the open side towards the road. It had almost the stolid aspect of a public building; and must, Donovan reflected, take an enormous income to keep up. Standish could certainly be no army man retired on half-pay.
The Guest House lay on the southern fringe of the park, in the clearing of a coppice which gave it a deserted, mournful, and rather ominous appearance. It was in a hollow of somewhat marshy ground, with a great ilex tree growing behind it, so that it seemed much smaller than it was. If The Grange itself was of plain design, some domestic architect seemed to have spread himself to make this place an unholy mongrel from all styles of building, and to give it as many geegaws as a super-mighty pipe organ in a super-mighty cinema theatre. It looked as though you could play it. Upon a squat stone house rose scrolls, tablets, stops, and fretwork. Every window — including those of the cellar — was protected by a pot-bellied grille in the French fashion. It was encircled by an upper and lower balcony, with fancy iron railings. Midway along the upper balcony Donovan could see on the west side of the square the door by which the murderer must have escaped. It still stood ajar, and a flight of stairs near it led down to the lower balcony. The very bad taste of the house had a sinister look. Despite the sunlight, it was gloomy in the coppice, and the stickiness of last night's rain had not disappeared.
The bishop was leading them up a brick walk, which divided at the house and encircled it, when he stopped suddenly. At the side of the walk that ran round the west end, they could see the figure of a man kneeling and staring at something on the ground.
The bishop almost said, "Aha!" He strode forward. The kneeling figure raised its head with a jerk.