"The shot, then, might well have been fired by my hypothetical Russian as far as the rifle was concerned; but he would have found it difficult to borrow Sir David's boots, and it seemed unlikely that any stranger would not only have dared to do so, but afterwards have had the audacity to return them. No, on the whole the footmarks seemed to clear the character of the Russian nation from any reasonable suspicion of being directly concerned in the crime.
"And yet, in spite of reason, I could not help feeling that the Society of the Friends of Man must be at the bottom of the whole thing in some way I had not yet fathomed. I made every inquiry as to whether any foreigner had visited the castle or been seen in the neighbourhood, but the only strangers among the visitors had been Miss Julia Romaninov and Miss Juliet Byrne's French maid, both of whose alibis appeared so far unimpeachable. I had it on Lady Ruth's authority that Miss Romaninov had been in the drawing-room with the other ladies at the time of the murder, and all the servants were at supper in the servants' hall. Otherwise I should have been inclined to look on Julia Romaninov with a suspicious eye, as being the only Russian I knew to be on the spot. The last word the dying man had been able to pronounce, too, was, according to Miss Byrne, 'steps' which might very well have been intended for steppes, and have some connection with the enemies he dreaded.
"With these considerations running in my mind, I made my way to the gun-room, not indeed with much expectation of its having anything to tell me, but as part of the day's work of inspection, which must not be shirked. I took down young Ashiel's rifle to examine. He had told me it was of the same description as his cousin's, and I was not very familiar with the make. It was owing to my wish to see for myself with what kind of weapon the deed had been done that a very important clue fell into my hands.
"As I put the rifle down on the bare deal table which forms the principal piece of furniture in the gun-room, I saw a grain of something dark, which looked like earth, fall off the butt end on to the boards beneath. I picked up the rifle, and looked closely at the butt; it was criss-crossed with small cuts, as they sometimes are, with the idea of preventing them from slipping, and in the cuts some dust, or earth, seemed, as I expected, to be adhering. I knocked the rifle upon the table, and a little shower fell from it. Except for the first grain, it might have been nothing but the ordinary dust of disuse, but I could not help thinking it was of a darker hue than the accumulations of years generally take upon themselves, and, further, I knew that the rifle had lately been used for stalking. It was, moreover, specklessly clean in every other part. I felt certain it had been leant upon the ground at no distant date; and I remembered the mark I had not been able to account for at the foot of the rose-bush, near the place where the plank had been used and, as I was persuaded, the cowardly shot actually fired. If a gun had been leant up against the large standard rose that grew there, it would have left just such a mark upon the soft ground.
"All this, of course, was a mere surmise, and rather wild at that, but the deer forests of Scotland are not muddy, whatever else they may be, and I felt an unreasoning conviction that the rifle had not accumulated dust while engaged upon its legitimate business on the mountain tops. The peaty moorland soil on which the castle stood would hardly be the best thing in the world for rose-trees, I imagined, and it seemed not too much to hope that some other kind of earth might be artificially mingled with it. I carefully collected the dust in a pill-box, and promised myself to lose no time in obtaining the opinion of an expert analyst, as to whether or no some trace of patent fertilizer, or other chemical, could not be traced in it.
"It was now for the first time that suspicion of young Lord Ashiel began to oust my theory of the Nihilist society's responsibility for the murder. He had, as I remembered, struck me as taking his cousin's guilt for granted with somewhat unnecessary alacrity. His rifle, I already believed, perhaps in my turn with needless alacrity, had fired the fatal bullet, and it seemed perfectly possible that it was his finger that pressed upon the trigger. He was, I knew, in the billiard-room, and alone, both before and after the murder was committed. It would have been quite easy for him to fetch his rifle, place the gardener's plank in position, fire his shot and return to the house, provided Miss Byrne did not rush immediately from the room. He knew her to be a brave girl and not likely to fly without making some attempt at offering assistance. But, if she had rushed from the spot and met the murderer outside the library door, it would be simple enough to convey the impression that he had heard the shot, and that he was either dashing to their help, or making for the garden in the attempt to catch the villain red handed. The rifle was the only thing likely to provoke an awkward question, but he could have dropped it in the dark and returned for it afterwards without much fear of detection. As it happened, he thought it safer to risk carrying it indoors, and hid it under the billiard-room sofa till he had a chance to clean it and take it to the gun-room, as we now know.
"You can imagine the scene: Lord Ashiel falling forward upon the writing-table under the light of the lamp; the scoundrel leaping from his post upon the plank, but not so quickly that he did not see the girl throw herself on her knees at the side of the fallen man. I can fancy the frenzied haste with which McConachan thrust the plank into the hedge and ran like a deer towards the door, which he had no doubt left open. I imagine him, then, tiptoeing to the door of the library and bending to listen, every nerve astretch. What he heard, no doubt reassured him; it may have been the voice of the girl calling upon her father, or it may have been the thud of her body falling upon the floor when she fainted. Perhaps, even, he may have stayed outside long enough to see her sink to the ground. Then he would steal back, shut the door as gently as he had opened it, and not breathe again till he found himself in the empty billiard-room, his tell-tale rifle still in his hand. No doubt he wished he had left it in the hedge at that moment, for he must have opened the billiard-room door with most lively apprehensions. Supposing the shot had been heard, and the household was rushing to the scene of the disaster? Supposing he opened the door to find the room full of people demanding an explanation of himself and his weapon? What explanation had he ready, I wonder? It must have taken all his nerve to turn the handle of the door….
"But no one can deny the man his full share of courage and decision.
"I felt more and more sure that in some such manner the crime had been gone about; and yet there were many complications, and more than once it seemed as if my convictions had been too hastily formed. Later that same afternoon I found, upon the sand of a little bay below the castle, marks that told me as plainly as they told one of the keepers who joined me there that a strange man had landed from a boat on the night of the murder, and even, if our calculations were right, not far off the very hour in which the deed was done. From the tracks left by his boots, which were large and without nails and extraordinarily pointed for those of a man, I felt sure that here one had landed who was no native of these parts, and the theory of the unknown Russian seemed to take on new life and vigour. The tracks, as we now know, were no doubt those of the member of the Society of the Friends of Man who was living at Crianan, and who hoped to have word with Julia Romaninov. It was no doubt he whom Sir David saw lurking in the grounds, and it is natural to suppose that when he perceived himself to be observed he retreated to his boat and made off, abandoning his proposed meeting for that night.
"I was to be further bewildered before my first day of investigation came to an end. Young Lord Ashiel had spent the day in searching for the will; and, if my inward certainty that he himself would prove to be the guilty man should turn out to be right, I could very well understand that he was anxious to find it. For, from what his uncle had said to Miss Byrne, it seemed possible that he had so worded his last will and testament, that whoever succeeded to the great fortune he had to bequeath, it might not be Mark McConachan. But the will was not to be found, and there was no doubt to whose interest it was that it should never be found; so that I felt pretty sure that, if the successor to the title were once able to lay his hands on it, no one else would ever do so. However, he hadn't found it yet, or the search would not be continued with such unmistakable ardour.