He had a long talk with Mr. Luke Churton, the London detective, who had exhausted all his means without arriving at any satisfactory result.
“I confess, my Lord, that I am altogether at a standstill,” said Mr. Churton, when he had related all that he had done since his arrival on the scene early on Saturday afternoon. “The utmost information I have been able to obtain leaves me without one definite idea. There is no one in the neighbourhood open to suspicion, so far as I can make out; for I am sure your Lordship will agree with me that your butler’s notion of a poacher resenting your treatment by the murder of your son-in-law is much too thin. One cannot accept such a notion as that for a moment,” said Mr. Churton, shaking his head.
“No, that is an untenable idea, no doubt.”
“The next suggestion is that some person was prowling about with the intention of abstracting trinkets and other valuables from the drawing-room—in an unguarded moment when the room might happen to be empty—and I admit that the present fashion of covering drawing-room tables and cabinets with valuables of every description is calculated to suggest plunder; but that kind of thing would be probable enough in London rather than in the country, and nothing is more unlikely than that a prowler of that order would resort to murder. Again, the manner in which the body was found, with the open book lying close to the hand that had held it, goes far to prove that Sir Godfrey was shot as he sat reading—and at a time when a burglar could have no motive for shooting him.”
“Do you think it was the act of a lunatic?”
“No, my Lord, for in that event the murderer would have been heard of or found before now. The gardens, park, and chase have been most thoroughly searched under my superintendence. It is not possible for a lap-dog to be hidden anywhere within this demesne. The neighbouring villages—solitary cottages—commons and copses—have been also submitted to a searching investigation—the police all over the country are on the alert. Of course the crime is still of very recent date. Time to us seems longer than it really is.”
“No doubt, no doubt! I can find no other hypothesis than that the act was done by a madman—such a motiveless murder—a man sitting by a window reading—shot by an unknown hand from a garden terrace—remote from the outer world. Were we in Ireland the crime might seem commonplace enough. Sir Godfrey was a landowner—and that alone is an offence against the idle and the lawless in that unhappy country,—but here, in the midst of an orderly, God-fearing population——”
“Had Sir Godfrey no enemy, do you think, my Lord?” asked the detective, gravely. “The crime has the look of a vendetta.”
“There never was a young man, owner of a considerable estate, more universally beloved. His tenants adore him—for as a landlord he has been exceptionally indulgent.”
“He may have granted too much in some quarters, and too little in others.”