“Shot from close range, you mean?”
Vance shook his head.
“No, Sergeant. I was referring to the fact that the deceased’s feet are pointing toward the basement door, and that, though his arms are extended, his legs are drawn up. Is that the way you’d say a man would fall who’d been shot through the heart?”
Heath considered the point.
“No-o,” he admitted. “He’d likely be more crumpled up; or, if he did fall over back, his legs would be straight out and his arms drawn in.”
“Quite.—And regard his hat. If he had fallen backwards it would be behind him, not at his feet.”
“See here, Vance,” Markham demanded sharply; “what’s in your mind?”
“Oh, numberless things. But they all boil down to the wholly irrational notion that this defunct gentleman wasn’t shot with a bow and arrow at all.”
“Then why, in God’s name——”
“Exactly! Why the utter insanity of the elaborate stage-setting?—My word, Markham! This business is ghastly.”