“That may mean one thing.”
“What?” I asked.
“We may have to juggle the time limit a little,” he commented. “But suppose we assume this—Warren was killed before six; the murderer did leave the door open. Perhaps it was because he saw the Chinaman coming up the hill. If he did, he went out the back door and returned when the oriental left. When he climbed the wall, he threw the dagger into the swamp, dropped on the ground and followed the wall down to the shore. Here he had a boat, and as he was going away, was seen by the gardener. In fact the gardener must have been coming across the grounds, inside the wall, when this person was going down to the shore, outside.”
“But who closed the door of the library?” I ventured.
“We do not know, of course. But we can make a guess. It would be a very easy matter for this person in the boat to watch the library from the lake. It was on a hill and could be easily seen. Suppose he saw the gardener. If so, he might return to the shore and go back to the library. Why he went back, I cannot understand. It must have been for some other purpose than to close the doors; that was not necessary. He knew that one person had discovered the murder; but then again it is a very queer crime all the way around.”
Though after this he asked me a number of other questions, I could give him nothing which seemed of any importance. For a while we talked, then rising with the remark that he did not feel like playing golf any longer, we walked across the course to the club house. Here we had a drink of ginger ale and then, going to the car, started for the house.
We discovered Ranville in the same position as when we had left. Carter was not in sight, and we found that he had not returned. As we dropped into easy chairs, Ranville drawled out some question about our game, then returned to his magazine. Finally, he flung it aside and, after a glance around, turned to Bartley:
“Have you any ideas about this murder?”
“Have you?” was the retort.
The Englishman smiled as he shook his head, then said: