Bernard stared at her fixedly.
“There’s a policeman on guard outside Graham’s door,” he said. “Until we find out who attacked Graham, the man will admit nobody who might have done it. We’d like to go through your bathroom, please.”
“I take your point!” Miss Mount permitted herself a slight, amused smile. “Pray make yourselves at home.”
They obeyed her, unlocked the bathroom door into the den and entered, switching on the lights. Bernard closed the door behind them, not too pointedly. Turning, he directed his companion’s attention to a steel arquebus which stood in a corner.
“There you are,” he said. “What about that thing? It looks to me as if it would shoot harder than any bow!”
Landis studied the foot-grip in front, the short, steel bow and the double-handled windlass back of the trigger catch. From this catch to the front of the stock, the distance was far too short to accommodate a three-foot arrow. Nor was there any guide to hold an arrow.
“These cross-bows,” Landis explained, “shoot heavy, short bolts, I think. They called ’em quarrels. The weapons weren’t built for arrows. Don’t believe they’d shoot straight.”
Bernard looked disappointed. His glance roved the walls, to light upon another cross-bow, a wooden one this time, with no foot-grip, a much longer stock, a gut instead of a steel bow-string, a wooden windlass and a deep groove along the top of the stock. Like the other, the bow itself was of steel.
“That would shoot an arrow,” he said. “It has that groove to guide it.”