And that was the answer to all our further questions—Audrey had then come in. Esdaile had as a matter of fact now told us all that had taken place between himself and Monty Rooke. For further information we must wait until Monty's return.
You may imagine, however, that I had now quite a lot of food for thought. In the first place, Rooke had taken it upon himself to conceal a highly material fact from the police. Whether Esdaile yet shared this responsibility was at present debatable. Audrey Cunningham's interruption half-way through Monty's story rather obscured the moral aspect of this last. One does not set weighty machinery going for trifles, and for all we knew Monty, when he arrived, might have a complete explanation. In the meantime Esdaile was probably wise to hold his hand.
A pistol, however, had undoubtedly been fired, and, as a further examination of the barrel showed, probably recently. And, if you remember, there was that small round hole in the starred roof-glass of the studio that I had at first assumed to have been caused by the broken mulberry branch. A pistol-bullet might have made just such a hole.
Next I remembered how Esdaile had been occupied when Hubbard and I had followed him into the studio shortly after his return from the cellar. He had been so engrossed in poking about the broken glass and mats on the studio floor that he had seemed to notice little else. Had he been looking for the bullet that had made that hole in the roof? And why had he had the roof-blinds drawn, and broken out on Monty when he had wanted to put them back again? This last, I admit, set me all at sea again. The drawing of the blinds would certainly hide the bullet-hole in the pane from anybody inside the house, supposing he wished to hide it; but what about the police who had been on the roof itself at that very moment? The drawing of the blinds inside would hide nothing from them. Why seek to conceal from the rest of us something that if they cared to investigate they could hardly fail to see?
One more thing. If that pistol had been fired on the premises, somewhere there must be, not only a bullet, but a spent case also. I mentioned this, and Esdaile gave a slight start of recollection.
"Of course!" he exclaimed. "Glad you mentioned that. I found the case in the garden. Here it is. I'd honestly forgotten all about it."
And, as he fetched it out of his waistcoat pocket and put it down by the side of the pistol, I as honestly believed he had.
"But there's no sign of the bullet?" I asked.
"I've looked high and low for it," Esdaile replied. "Low, I should say, because naturally I don't want to go hunting about the roof in the daylight. Too many eyes about. There's no trace of it."
"But it wouldn't be on the roof if it made that hole in the glass. It would be in the studio. Or possibly," I ventured, "in the cellar."