Aire looked at her inquiringly. “I suppose you mean the rigidity—cadaveric spasm, as we call it? What do you want me to—?”
“It shows something about the way he was killed, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does. The topic is of great interest to one of my profession; we come across it so seldom, save on the battlefield. We know something about it, though, enough to be sure that there are certain definite predisposing factors.”
She nodded. “Yes, I meant that. Please go on.”
“Sudden death is one, and death due to violent disturbance of nervous system. Then the last contraction of the muscles during life persists with more rigidity even than in the usual rigor.”
“I’m sure you people see what I mean by harping on these gruesome things,” said the girl. “Thank you, Doctor. This abnormal state of things taken with the shot through the broken window proves that Mr. Heatheringham was killed right where we found him. I mean he couldn’t have been bludgeoned outside—say where I found Sean lying—and have crawled back into the Hall and raised himself to the window to fire at whoever might have been there. So far, we have no idea who was with him; yet I think it must have been one of the servants or one of us—more likely one of us.”
No one chose to say anything in the brief silence she left. Presently, in a fresher tone, she resumed.
“That’s how the problem stood yesterday: just death, simple and inexplicable—violent death without a real motive—violent death without an agent, apparently. Even the discovery of the stone has been no help in finding the agent; anybody could have grabbed a stone from the rockery.”
Crofts muttered, “Why go over all that again? We’ve known it from the start.”
“I apologize. I only mentioned those things to go on to say that it’s useless to think about them any longer. We could continue for weeks and months mulling over motive and method—mulling over time and place and all the rest of it that makes an endless circle. Last night, though, I thought of a new way.”