Graham shook his head.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Not since I have been here, sir,” the policeman volunteered, and Doctor Stanford nodded endorsement.
Landis took one of the feather vanes between finger and thumb, slid the nocked end of the arrow from under Harrison’s body and lifted the shaft clear. Taking care not to let it touch anything, he walked into the library and deposited his deadly trophy beside the blunted arrow over which Sergeant Forbes was standing guard.
When he got back to the reception-room Bernard and Graham had hold of Harrison’s head and the doctor was swiftly stripping the corpse to the waist. Graham’s face was drawn with distaste.
The removal of the dead man’s undershirt revealed a small, clotted wound in the back near the shoulder blade. In front, perhaps two inches on the left side of the breastbone, the hairy chest showed an irregular, raised lump, torn open at the top and dark with blood. Side by side from the top of the lump protruded a blunted metal arrowhead and a thick, jagged splinter of bone. Half an inch of the arrowhead was visible and about an inch of the broken rib. Friction with the clothing had wiped these almost clear of blood.
“Not much question of the cause of death,” commented Landis grimly. “Well, let’s pull out the arrow if we can, Doctor, and keep our exhibits together.”
Presently the doctor held out to him the rest of the arrow—the blunted end and about a foot of shaft—which he had managed to draw from the wound and had wiped clean. Bernard had laid the body down where it had first fallen.
Again Landis traversed the library to leave this bit of splintered evidence with the rest.
“Look here, sir,” he said to Bernard as he re-entered the front room, “I’d like to get the exact line of flight of that arrow, if you’ll lend me a hand.”