“I expected something.”
Carter gave a start, his face expressing a good deal of amazement. The Englishman, however, did not seem at all surprised by what had been said. And then Patton went on to tell why he had left the library. It was a very simple thing; he wanted some tobacco and he discovered that he had none in his pockets. Not finding any in the library, he went out leaving the door open. That was a little after five. Down by the iron gate he found the gardener and asked him to go and stay in the library until he returned. This was the first hint I had received that the gardener was still working on the estate.
The gardener had said that he would go in a moment or so, adding that no one could reach the building without passing up the path. With this, Patton had wandered down the street to the business section and had gone into the first store he noticed, bought tobacco and an evening paper. As he figured it, he was not away from the grounds more than thirty or forty minutes, returning directly after making his purchase. When he came up the path and entered the library, the first thing he saw was the hundreds of bits of paper on the floor, and that the manuscript was destroyed.
That was the first thing. Almost in the same moment he saw the figure lying by the rear door. He ran over to its side—to discover it was the gardener and that he was dead—shot. He was so dazed for a moment that he did nothing. Then he went to the phone and called us.
It was a simple story, and yet an amazing one. That in the space of one hour—in the time it took Patton to go to a store and buy some tobacco—another murder had been committed in the scientist's library; it seemed almost beyond belief. But that the gardener—a simple-minded man of his type—should be the victim was even more startling. I started to voice my thought, but Carter was ahead of me.
“But, John! Why—why under God should any person kill that gardener?”
“They never intended to kill the gardener,” came Ranville's dry voice.
Bartley gave him a keen look, commenting:
“Ranville is right. No one ever intended to kill the gardener. They wanted—that is, if they wished to kill any one—to murder Patton.”
“But,” came Patton's wailing voice, “why should any one wish to kill me?”