"In a pig's eye I could."
"But the feller was my own ancestor, curse it! His picture's the spittin' image of me. And I've just got a book on swordsmanship. And," added H.M., suddenly drawing himself up and glaring at his companion with awful dignity, "are we goin' to get on about Sir George Fleet, or aren't we?"
Masters shut his eyes, counted ten, and opened them again. There was a brief silence, under the ghost-clock and in the room of sporting prints. Then Masters went on.
"The gardener," he said, "told him the hunt was coming. So he picked up a pair of field-glasses, and started up for the roof. Now the only way to the roof is through a covered door at the very back, or west side, of the roof.
"Sir George walked straight to the front of the roof, a position just about over the front door below. He raised the field-glasses, and focussed them. It seems there was a lurid kind of red sky behind him, but it was clear light Now get this, sir. The chimney-stacks were fifty feet behind him. He was alone on a concrete floor, without anybody or any object within fifty feet of him."
Masters paused. He riffled over several pages, flattening them down with his fist.
"Stop the bus again," muttered H.M. "What about the field-glasses? I seem to remember readin' a story where there was hokey-pokey with field-glasses, and they stuck somebody in the eye."
Masters was now cat-like and bland. "The fact is, sir, I thought you might bring that up. The glasses were just plain field-glasses, as you'll hear in a moment Accept that?"
"Uh-huh. Go on.?
"Our real evidence," Masters continued, "comes from six witnesses on this side of the road. Two of these witnesses," he pointed upwards, "were sitting astride the gable-tops of this pub. And these two witnesses are clinchers.