"Any finger-prints?" inquired Harding, his eyes on the pencil that lay on the desk.
"No, nothing of that kind. Quite clean it was." He looked rather dubiously at Harding. "Were you thinking there might have been robbery, sir?"
"No, I should say most unlikely."
"That's what I thought," said the Sergeant, glad to find himself in agreement.
Harding had picked up a slip of paper on the top of tie sheaf on the desk. Some memoranda had been jotted down on it in pencil. Harding considered the pencil again for a moment.
"Looks like the General was making a list of what he had to do," suggested the Sergeant helpfully.
"It looks as though he were interrupted while he was doing so," said Harding. "He did not finish the last note he made."
"No more he did!" said the Sergeant, stooping to read the pencilled scrawl more nearly. "Speak to Lester," (that's the gardener) and then "See Barker about."
Well, that isn't sense, is it? The General wouldn't write a thing like that. He was a very methodical man. No, you're right, sir. Someone interrupted him before he had time to put down what he wanted to see Mr Barker about, and what's more he didn't finish that memo, afterwards, because he was dead."
"Well, perhaps that's leaping to conclusions a bit," said Harding. "At the same time it is just possible that he was jotting down that note when his murderer entered the room, and equally possible that at the moment when the blow was struck he was still holding the pencil in his hand."