“But I don’t,” was the unexpected reply. “Lumsden was not murdered at the farm. He was shot in the open, somewhere between Staveley and Ashlingsea, and his dead body was brought into the house in a motor-car. It could not have been Marsland who brought the dead body there, because he was on horseback, and his lamed horse was in the stable at the farm when we were all there next day.”
CHAPTER XVIII
“You are on the wrong track, Mr. Crewe,” said Gillett, who was determined not to part with the theory he had built up round the evidence he had collected. “I was positive the murder took place in the house. This man Jauncey, whom I mentioned, can swear that he heard a shot fired. And more than that, he can swear that he was hit by the bullet. This is the bullet that was extracted from his wound in the left arm. It fits this revolver.”
“My dear Gillett, I don’t dispute any of these things,” said Crewe. “They merely support my contention that the murder was not committed at the farm, but that the body was brought there, and that the man who took the body there took certain steps with the object of creating the impression that the tragedy took place in the room in which the body was found.”
“What evidence have you of that?” asked Sergeant Westaway, coming to the aid of his official superior.
“The bullet that killed Lumsden went clear through his body—so much was decided at the post-mortem examination,” Crewe said. “But that fact was also evident from a cursory examination of the body, as we saw it in the chair. You will remember that I drew attention to the fact when we were looking at the body. Your theory is that the shot was fired as Lumsden was standing at the window, with his back towards his murderer, that the bullet went through him, through the window, and lodged in the arm of this man Jauncey who stated he was outside in the garden. But the course of the bullet through Lumsden’s body was slightly upward. How in that case could it strike downward and wound a man on the ground ten or twelve feet below the windows on the first story?”
“The bullet might have been deflected by the glass of the window,” said Gillett.
“It might have been, but it is highly improbable that ordinary window-glass would deflect a bullet—even a spent one. In any case this bullet hit the cherry-tree outside the window before hitting Jauncey. You will find that it cut the bark of the cherry-tree—the mark is 4 ft. 4½ inches from the ground.”
“Then it was the cherry-tree that deflected it?” said Sergeant Westaway.