"Because I wrote to him yesterday saying that I could not allow the condemned man to be sacrificed. It was Sir Jasper Chambers who killed Professor McMurray."
For a moment Inspector Carfon's eyes looked as if they would start out of his head. He turned and looked at Sir John Dene, who with unsteady hand was taking a cheroot from his case.
Malcolm Sage drew his pipe from his pocket and proceeded to fill it.
"On the Tuesday night," he began, "it is obvious that Professor
McMurray admitted someone to the laboratory. That man was Sir Jasper
Chambers.
"When the two had dined together a week before," proceeded Malcolm Sage, "an appointment was obviously made for a week later. The professor's last words were significant: 'Anyway, Chambers, you will be the first to know.' If the experiments had proved fatal, how could Sir Jasper be the first to know unless an appointment had been made for him to call at the laboratory and discover for himself the result?"
The inspector coughed noisily.
"When Sir Jasper learned of the unqualified success of the experiments, and saw by the professor's changed appearance proof of his triumph, he remembered the article in The Present Century. He realised that in the lengthening of human life a terrible catastrophe threatened the world. Humanitarianism triumphed over his affection for his friend, and he killed him."
Sir John Dene nodded his head in agreement. The inspector was leaning forward, his arms on the table, staring at Malcolm Sage with glassy eyes.
"The assailant was clearly a tall, powerful man and left-handed. That was shown by the nature of the blow. That he had some knowledge of physiology is obvious from the fact that he made no attempt at a second blow to insure death, as a layman most likely would have done. He knew that he had smashed the occipital bone right into the brain. In his early years Sir Jasper studied medicine.
"The crime committed, Sir Jasper proceeded to cover his tracks. With the poker he loosened the sockets of the bolts and that of the lock in order to give an impression that the door had been burst open from without. He then left the place and, to suggest robbery as a motive for the crime, he took with him the professor's gold watch, which he threw away. This was found a few hours later by the tramp whom you, Carfon, want to hang for a crime of which he knows nothing." There was a note of sternness in Malcolm Sage's voice.