“I think I kicked him once, sir; but it was only a graze.”
“Pity,” Sir Clinton said. “It would have always been something gained if you’d marked him with a good bruise.”
“Oh, there’ll be a mark, if that’s all you want, sir. But it wouldn’t prevent him runnin’ at all.”
“And then?” Sir Clinton brought Mold back to his story.
“Then, almost at once when the lights went out, I heard glass breakin’—just as if you’d heaved a stone through a window. It seemed to me—but I couldn’t take my oath on it—as if there was two smashes, one after t’other. I couldn’t be sure. Then there was a lot of scufflin’ in the dark; but who did it, I couldn’t rightly say. I was busy tryin’ to get free from the man who was holdin’ me then.”
Sir Clinton moved over to the rifled compartment and inspected the broken glass thoughtfully for a moment or two.
“Are you looking for finger-marks?” asked Joan, as she came to his side.
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Not much use hunting for finger-marks round here. Remember how many people must have leaned on this case at one time or other during the evening, when they were looking at the collection before the robbery. Finger-prints would prove nothing against any one in particular, I’m afraid, Joan. What I’m really trying to find is some evidence confirming Mold’s notion that he heard two smashes after the light went out. It certainly looks as if he were right. If you look at the way that bit of glass there is cracked, you’ll see two series of lines in it. It might have been cracked here”—he pointed with his finger—“first of all: long cracks radiating from a smash over in this direction. Then there was a second blow—about here—which snapped off the apices of the spears of glass left after the first smash. But that really proves nothing. The same man might easily have hit the pane twice.”
He turned back to the keeper.