“That's it,” nodded Giles. “If Roger Vereker, seated in that chair, put the pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger, the empty cartridge-case ought to be somewhere between the desk and the window, not here by the fire.” He lit a cigarette, and flicked the dead match behind him, into the grate. His eyes measured the distance between himself and the chair by the desk. “I think, when the autopsy takes place, you will find that the pistol was not held quite so close to the head,” he remarked.
“Thanks,” Hannasyde said, glancing curiously at him. “I seem to have been doing you a certain amount of injustice. I suspected you of being more anxious to impede than to assist - on this particular case.”
“One murder I can stomach,” replied Giles shortly. “I find my gorge turns a bit at two of them. Moreover - bad lot though he was - Roger was utterly inoffensive. There might be several pardonable reasons for killing Arnold: only one reason for killing Roger, and that one not pardonable. No, definitely not pardonable.”
“Quite,” said Hannasyde. His eyes narrowed suddenly, looking at something beyond Giles. “Was your cousin a pipe-smoker?”
“I don't think so.”
Hannasyde stepped forward and looked more closely at the pipe on the mantelpiece. “A meerschaum, coloured more on one side than the other,” he said. “I fancy I have seen it before.”
“Possibly,” said Giles. “It belongs to Kenneth. But I shouldn't build on it as a clue. Kenneth was one of a party held at this flat three - four evenings ago.”
“Wouldn't he miss his pipe?” inquired the Sergeant. “I'd miss a pipe of mine quick enough. The dottle's in it still, what's more. You'd expect Roger Vereker to have seen it and knocked it out, and sent the pipe back to his brother.”
“On the contrary,” said Giles, “I shouldn't expect Roger to do anything so energetic.”
“You are possibly right,” said Hannasyde, “but a little of the ash has fallen out of the pipe, as you see. Would you not expect the housemaid who cleans this flat to have dusted that away?”