"I found that there was blood upon my hand!" said Joseph, in shuddering accents. "Blood from my brother's coat, where I had touched it! Then, and then only, I saw the little rent, and knew that Nat had been done to death!"
The Inspector, quite carried away by all this, murmured, "Foully done to death," before he could stop himself, and then had to cough, to smother his own words. Fortunately, Joseph did not seem to have heard him. Lost in admiration of his own performance, thought Hemingway, wondering how a man who was undoubtedly unnerved could yet dramatise his emotions with such morbid relish.
"Very upsetting for you, sir," he said. "I'm sure I don't want to make you dwell on it more than I need, but I do want to know what happened when Ford had gone off to ring up the doctor. When Inspector Colwall came here he found the doors locked, and all the windows shut."
"Yes, that's what makes it so inexplicable!" said Joseph.
"Did you yourself see that the windows were shut, sir?"
"No, but my nephew did. I was too overcome! It had not even occurred to me that we ought to look at the windows. But my nephew was a tower of strength! He thought of everything, just as one had always felt sure he would, in an emergency!
"He looked at the windows, did he, sir?"
"Yes, I'm sure he did. I seem to remember that he walked over to them, putting back the curtains. Ah yes! and he asked me if I realised that the doors were both locked, and all the windows shut!"
"You didn't look at the windows yourself, sir?"
"No, why should I? It was enough that one of us had seen that they were shut. I didn't care: I think I was half stunned!"