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Authors: Ianthe Jerrold

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Jeanie made a hasty mental sketch-map of the Cleedons orchard and its surroundings.

“He was shot in the left temple. Why then, that means the shot must have come—well, from
this
direction, as Sir Henry thought! From the south!”

“No, for he turned his head. As I told you, he turned his head as if in answer to my silent call upon him. He turned his head so that he almost faced me. And at that moment came the crack of the shot and he fell.”

“He almost faced you,” repeated Jeanie, readjusting her mental picture. “In that case, it
was
from the lambing-shed direction, the north-west, that the shot came. The lambing-shed, where Sir Henry found the cigarette-end! Surely this is awfully important, Mr. Fone! Did you notice the exact time?”

Mr. Fone smiled a little at Jeanie's excitement.

“Certainly. When I got up to go home I looked at my watch. It was a minute or so after I had seen Molyneux fall, and the time was twenty-three minutes to four.”

“That agrees with Tamsin Wills. She said the time was three thirty-five. Agnes seemed to suggest that it might have been earlier.”

Jeanie stopped abruptly, realising that Agnes had said nothing to her or to the police about a meeting with Peter Johnson. The interview Peter had described might well account for the ten minutes' gap in Agnes's story. It was plain now why Agnes had become so shrill and angry at the end of her interview with Superintendent Finister. She had been hiding something. But, as with most cowards, it was her luck to fly from a lesser danger to a greater. For, if the police came to hear, as of course they would come to hear, of her quarrels with Robert, they might think that ten minutes' gap in her time-table hid something worse than an interview with Peter.

Chapter Nine
CROWNER'S QUEST

The inquest was opened the following day at two o'clock in the work-room at Cleedons, a large old barn which Robert Molyneux had converted to his uses as a carpenter's shop. The natural melancholy of the occasion was intensified by the chilled, discoloured faces of those who attended, hands nervously rubbed together and breath vaporous upon the air.

Dr. Hall, the police surgeon and amateur archaeologist, was first called. Jeanie, who had last encountered him wearing his private professional manner on the threshold of Agnes's bedroom, would hardly have recognised that mournful medico in the brisk, abrupt and cocksure little man who now cheerfully deposed to having performed an autopsy on the body of Robert Molyneux.

“—perfectly healthy, and all the organs free from disease. The left temple bone was perforated, and I found much laceration of both cerebral hemispheres. Imbedded in the right frontal lobe I found this bullet.”

A small object lying on a piece of stiff paper was passed up the table towards the coroner, who, picking it up, commented curiously:

“A lead bullet, I see, somewhat flattened by the impact.”

“The bullet had entered at a point on the extreme left of the frontal lobe just above the eye-socket, and travelled in a straight line through the frontal lobes, causing damage to the sphenoid bone and extensive laceration of the cerebrum. There was no scorching around the perforation.”

“You were among the first to reach the body after death?”

“I believe so. I saw the body within a very short while of death.”

“At what time, Dr. Hall?”

“At ten minutes to four. Sir Henry Blundell and Miss Halliday were present. The body was then lying in the orchard. It was quite warm.”

“How long, in your opinion, since death had taken place?”

“Taking into consideration the damp cold earth upon which the body was lying, I should say death could not have taken place more than twenty minutes previously.”

The coroner, a Mr. Perrott, a retired solicitor living in Handleston, nodded.

“That would fix the earliest possibility of death at half-past three. You heard no shot yourself, Doctor?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. I left the house about half-past three to fetch a copy of
Archaeologia
from my car, which I had left in Cole Harbour Lane near the foot-path stile. As I reached the car, I heard a shot. I did not look at my watch, but it must have been about twenty-five minutes to four.”

“Did you pass the orchard gate on your way to your car?”

“No. I took the foot-path across the fields.”

“Did you see anybody at all?”

"Nobody. At least”—Dr. Hall corrected himself—“that is not quite accurate. There was somebody repairing the roof of Cole Harbour House. As I crossed back over the stile I heard a hammering noise, and saw somebody on the leads. It was Mr. Barchard, I believe.”

The middle-aged man who next gave evidence was unknown to Jeanie.

“You are a gunsmith, Mr. Toogood? Can you describe this bullet?”

“It's a lead bullet from a point twenty-two rim-fire cartridge. Chiefly used in miniature rifles for range practice, and also in rook-rifles for sporting purposes.”

“Can they be used in any other kinds of fire-arm?”

“There are several makes of automatic pistol and similar arms on the market which use this ammunition,” replied Mr. Toogood. “These arms are made for practice and target purposes, as the ammunition is much cheaper than large-calibre ammunition. They would not be likely to be bought by anyone for defence purposes.'

“Could this bullet,” inquired the coroner, with a glance at Superintendent Finister, “have been fired from a service revolver?”

“No, they are all of larger calibre.” Mr. Toogood hesitated, and corrected himself. “Well, there is an adaptor can be used that would make it possible to fire a bullet like this from a service revolver. They aren't exactly common.”

“Now there is the point of from what distance the shot was fired.”

“Well, that'd entirely depend, really, on what the weapon was. A rifle of point twenty-two calibre can be accurate up to two hundred yards or more. But in the hands of most people an automatic pistol using this ammunition would have a much shorter effective range. It can't have been fired from very close, that's the only certain thing, or the bullet would have gone clean through the head, whatever it was fired from. But it's not possible to say exactly how far. I should say that the shot must have been fired from more than twenty yards away, but I wouldn't like to be more exact than that, till I know whether it was a rifle or a pistol it was fired from.”

“I see. Do you know the Tower gun-rooms, Mr. Toogood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeanie heard Peter, who was sitting next to her, very cautiously draw in his breath. He looked flushed and strung-up.

“Are there any weapons in the Cleedons Tower gunrooms which might have fired this shot?”

A faint smile came to the gunsmith's free. “Fourteen, sir.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“But not many of them could have been fired from either of the Tower rooms, if that's what you mean, sir. I mean, only the three rifles would carry the distance, and you'd need to be a pretty hot shot, even then.”

“Oh,” said the coroner hastily. “I was not suggesting —I did not mean necessarily
from
the Tower.” He shot a glance at William Fone's impassive face, as though he already knew the nature of the evidence Fone was to give. “Still, it is in your opinion possible—I mean, it is your opinion that a rifle-shot could carry accurately the distance between either of the Tower rooms and the orchard?”

“I'm told the distance is about a hundred and fifty yards. It could be done, sir. But only by a good shot.”

“Thank you, Mr. Toogood.”

Mr. Toogood took his seat again in Perrott looked over the papers on the table before him. 

“Now I understand that a shot was heard at Cleedons by several people on the afternoon of Mr. Molyneux's death, and I propose taking evidence on this point. Mr. Eustace Agatos.”

The man who was sitting at the side of Myfanwy Peel rose and took his place at the table. He was a short, dark, sallow man, stoutly built and carefully dressed. He looked a prosperous man of business, a Londoner, self-confident, urbane, a little paunchy, a little dyspeptic, a little bald: a man of a very commonplace type, Jeanie thought, until, in a moment, she noticed his quite black, impenetrable, melancholy eyes and his immense diamond ring, and saw him thereafter as a foreigner and an oriental.

“Now, Mr. Agatos. You remember Monday afternoon, November the third?”

“The day before yesterday, yes, I remember.”

“What were your movements that afternoon?”

“I was driving my car down from London. I arrived here at five minutes past three. I stopped my car in the road about a hundred yards below the entrance to Cleedons, where the little lane turns off on the opposite side of the road. I backed my car into the little lane. This was at about ten past three. I stayed there till a quarter to four. Then I drove back to London.”

He spoke with composure. He seemed completely indifferent to the eager curious eyes upon him. They were strangers to him, all these country people. They were only an audience. Their thoughts meant nothing to him.

“For what purpose did you drive down here, Mr. Agatos?”

With a faint humorous pucker of his thick pale lips, Agatos replied: 

“To oblige a lady. The lady who was with me, Mrs. Peel, she wished for an interview with Mr. Molyneux.”

“Why did you not drive up to the house?”

“The lady who was with me did not wish to pay a formal visit. She did not wish to meet Mrs. Robert Molyneux, said Agatos simply. “She wished first to see if she might meet with Mr. Molyneux about his grounds somewhere.”

“And meanwhile—while Mrs. Peel departed in search of Mr. Molyneux—you remained in your car?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell us everything that happened between ten past three and your departure for London?”

Mr. Agatos pursed his lips and looked at Mr. Perrott with a faint pucker between his dark eyebrows.

“Everything that happened?” he murmured deprecatingly. “The bluetit that sat for a moment on my windscreen? The cows that passed along the road? The dead leaf that dropped off the hedge into a puddle and got wet?”

There was laughter, instantly suppressed by a somewhat flushed and irritated coroner.

“Everything that is relevant, if you please.”

“I sat in my car,” said Mr. Agatos slowly. “And for a little while I read the paper. And I went on sitting in my car. And I thought: Shall I get out and go for a walk? And then I thought: No, I am too lazy. So I went on sitting in my car.”

Once again there was a disposition to amusement, but it was only a titter this time, and a glance suppressed it.

“When I had been sitting there about half an hour, I heard a shot, quite close. One shot.”

“You don't know exactly what time this was?” 

“I did not look at my watch, no. But I would judge it to be between half-past three and twenty to four. About three minutes later a young man, Mr. Peter Johnson, came along the road and we talked for a bit.”

“Do you see the young man here?”

Mr. Agatos smiled affably at Peter.

“Yes. We talked of this and that for about five minutes. Then Mrs. Peel returned and said, let us go home. And I looked at my watch as we started, and it was a quarter to four. Mr. Johnson said that he was returning to London that afternoon, so I gave him a lift.”

“Thank you, Mr. Agatos. Oh, there is one thing more! Do you possess any fire-arms?”

“Somewhere I have an old service revolver. And now I suppose I shall go to prison because I have admitted this dreadful thing and I have no permit.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Agatos shrugged.

“Not exactly, I am afraid. At home. In my flat, some-where. Perhaps in the tool cupboard, perhaps among my socks.”

“I think that is all, thank you.”

The witness made his way back to his seat next to Myfanwy. Jeanie saw him as he sat down give an affectionate touch to Myfanwy's hand, which Myfanwy, as if in anger, instantly withdrew. She looked sideways at the coroner, and there was fear in her eyes. It was obvious to Jeanie that she dreaded the moment when her name would be called. But it was not yet. The evidence of Sir Henry Blundell was taken next. He had left the Field Club members to go to the cloak-room on the ground floor of the Tower. The outer passage door had been open. When he left the cloak-room he stepped outside the passage door to examine the ancient stone coffin that stood there and was used for growing ferns in. While examining the coffin he heard a shot. When he returned to the hall soon after, the clock stood at twenty to four.

Tamsin Wills followed. She had been looking out of the lower gun-room in the Tower. She looked at her watch and saw that it was just on twenty-five to four, and thought it was time that her pupil tidied herself for tea. As she turned away from the window she heard a shot. It had sounded very close, very close indeed. No, it had not occurred to her to turn and look out of the window. Why should it? There was nothing unusual in hearing a shot. One often did, in the country. Yes, from the window she had seen Mr. Molyneux standing on a ladder. His back had been towards her.

Agnes was next called. The coroner was very kind to her, spoke gently and made his questioning as brief as possible. But even so she shook, shed tears and made frequent use of the answer: “I don't know.”

“I don't know what the time was. I didn't look at the clock after I left my room.”

“But, Mrs. Molyneux, you went out to ask your husband to come in—”

“Well?”

“If you wanted him to come in, didn't you know what the time was?”

“I knew it was a quarter-past three when I left my room. And I knew our guests had arrived.”

“Did you go straight out when you left your room.”

“No. I talked to some of the servants.”

“Do you mind saying which of them?”

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