"Run up to the police-station," he said to one of the stable boys, "and ask the inspector to come down with you sharp. Whether Sir Geoffrey is dead or not we won't lose any time in putting the police on the scoundrel's track. Go straight up and come straight back, and don't get talking to anybody else. We don't want all the town swarming down here."
The storm was dying. Rain still fell and thunder still rumbled in the distance, but the heavy atmospheric oppression was gone, and bird life was beginning to make itself audible again. In silence the men waited under the verandah for the doctor, from whose advent they still hoped for some relief. Presently he came, grave and with lips compressed, for he knew and loved Sir Geoffrey. Ralph came, too, even more haggard than before, and unlocking the door led the way into the inner room. But although the doctor seemed to the bystanders, in their anxiety, to take a long time over his examination, the first glance had in reality been enough to satisfy his trained eye that Sir Geoffrey was beyond all human aid. As he turned to Ralph and sorrowfully shook his head, the police superintendent walked swiftly and quietly into the room, and looked first at the body and then at the doctor.
"Is it all over, sir?"
"All over," said the doctor very sadly. "If I had been here at the time I could have done nothing. This is a matter for you, inspector."
The inspector looked at the tell-tale mark upon the shirt where the flame had scorched it, and then looked inquiringly at the doctor.
"Yes," said the doctor, understanding the unspoken question; "it is murder."
The inspector turned away.
"Who found the body?"
"I did," Ralph replied.
"Then with your permission I will come up to the house when I have just looked round and locked up the place," the inspector said, and Ralph went out with the doctor. Thus left in command, the inspector's manner changed. He cleared the room of all save Martin Somers, and carefully noted all the little details: the closed windows, the position of the furniture, the empty tumbler on the table. In the dressing-room he saw the water in the basin just stained with blood, and in the corner by the press the blood-stained shirt and jacket which Ralph had just changed, his wet sweater and blazer and soaked flannel trousers hanging upon the side of the big bath where he had left them to dry. Next, the inspector made a careful search all round the boathouse, but the almost tropical rain had obliterated all footsteps, and no clue remained outside. When he at length was satisfied, he summoned the stablemen, and, improvising a litter of the two shutters, lashed together across the boathooks from the canoe, they reverently laid Sir Geoffrey's body on it and bore all that remained of the fine old gentleman back to the beautiful home of which he had been so proud and beloved a master.