`Well. I'm goin', he volunteered. `Anything, you want to know? No use tellin' you that did for him.. Clean puncture; plenty of strength behind it. Might have lived half a minute, Hur-umph. Oh yes. Concussion. Might have, got it falling down the steps, or maybe somebody batted him. That's your job.'
`What about the time of death, Watson? The doctor here says he died between one-thirty and one-forty-five.'
`Oh,' he does, does he?' said the police surgeon. `Wasn't a bad guess, though. He died about ten minutes to two. I'll take him along in the ambulance for a good look, and let you know.'
He doddered out, swinging his black bag.
`But look here!' protested Sir William, when the door had closed. 'He can't possibly know it so exactly, can he? I thought doctors gave a good deal of leeway on a thing like that.'
`He doesn't,' said Hadley. `That's why he's so invaluable. And in twenty years I've never known him more than ten minutes wrong about the, time of death.'
He turned to Laura Bitton.
`To proceed, Mrs Bitton. Let's assume that this bolt came from your house. Who knew it was there?'
`Why, everybody, I imagine. I don't remember, but I suppose I must have shown the junk we accumulated on that trip.'
'Had you seen it before, Sir William?'