“This part of the road is worth examining. There are several features about it which fit in with my conception of the scene of the crime.”
The four men got out of the car and walked forward, looking about them. Crewe walked a little ahead, with his eyes roving over the rising bank and the trees at the top. Several times he tried to clamber up the bank, but the incline was too steep.
“What are you trying to do?” said Gillett, who was watching his proceedings curiously.
“I am trying to fit in my theory of the crime by actual experiments. If I can satisfy myself that Lumsden was able to climb this bank at some point I believe we shall have reached the scene of the murder.”
“But why is it necessary to prove that?” asked Gillett, in a puzzled voice. “Brett might have met him on the road, shot him from the car which had been pulled up, and then carried the body to Cliff Farm.”
“My dear Gillett, have you forgotten that the bullet which killed Lumsden took an upward course after entering the body? If he had been shot from the car it would have gone downwards.”
“Damn it! I forgot all about that point,” exclaimed Gillett, reddening with vexation.
“Lumsden couldn’t have been shot on the road, either, because in that case the bullet would have gone straight through him—unless the man who fired the shot knelt down in the road and fired upwards at him, which is not at all likely. Furthermore, Lumsden was shot in the back low down, and the bullet travelled upwards and came out above the heart. Therefore we’ve got to try and visualize a scene which fits in with these circumstances. That’s why I have been looking at this bank so carefully. Let us suppose that Lumsden was walking along the road and encountered his would-be slayer. Lumsden saw the revolver, and turned to run. He thought his best chance of escape was across the downs, so he dashed towards the bank and sprang up it. He had almost reached the top when the shot was fired. That seems to me the most possible way of accounting for the upward course of the bullet.”
“I see,” said Gillett, nodding his head. “Brett might have fired from his seat in his car, in that case.”
“Precisely,” returned Crewe. “But the weak point in my argument is that so far we have not reached a point in the bank which is capable of being scaled.”