Carrington smiled and gently shook his head.
"I don"t know much about these things," said he, "but I"m afraid I can"t see the physical impossibility. It was very easy for any one in the house to come downstairs and open that door, and if Sir Reginald knew him, it would account for his silence and the absence of any kind of a struggle."
"But yon table and the windie being unfastened! And the mud I picked up myself--and the hearth brush!"
"They scarcely make it impossible," said Carrington.
"Well, sir," demanded the butler, "what"s your own theory?"
Carrington said nothing for several minutes. He strolled up and down the room, looked at the table and the window, and at last asked:
"Do you remember quite distinctly what Sir Reginald looked like when you found him--the position of the body--condition of the clothes--and everything else?"
"I see him lying there every night o" my life, just as plain as I see you now!"
"The feet were towards the door, just as though he had been facing the door when he was struck down?"
"Aye, but then my view is the body was moved----"
He was interrupted by a curious performance on Mr. Carrington"s part.
His visitor was in fact stretching himself out on the floor on the spot where Sir Reginald was found.
"He lay like this?" he asked.
"Aye, practically just like that, sir."
"Now, Bisset," said the rec.u.mbent visitor, "just have a very good look at me and tell me if you notice any difference between me and the body of Sir Reginald."
Bisset looked for a few seconds and then exclaimed:
"Your clothes are no alike! The master"s coat was kind of pulled up like about his shoulders and neck. Oh, and I mind now the tag at the back for hanging it up was broken and sticking out."
Carrington sprang to his feet with a gleam in his eye.
"The tag was not broken before he put on the coat?"
"It certainly was not that! But what"s your deduction, sir?"
Carrington smiled at him.
"What do you think yourself, Bisset? You saw how I threw myself down quite carelessly and yet my coat wasn"t pulled up like that."
"G.o.d, sir!" cried the butler. "You mean the corp had been pulled along the floor by the shoulders!"
Carrington nodded.
"Then he had been killed near the windie!"
"Not too fast, not too fast!" smiled Carrington. "Your own first statement which I happened to read in a back number of the newspaper the other day said that the windows were all fastened when Sir Reginald came into the room."
"Ah, but I"ve been altering my opinion on that point, sir."
Carrington shook his head.
"I"m afraid because a fastened window doesn"t suit your theory."
"But the master might have opened it to him, thinking it was some one he knew."
"Sounds improbable," said Carrington thoughtfully.
"But not just absolutely impossible."
"No," said Carrington, still very thoughtfully, "not impossible."
"Sir Reginald might never have seen it was a stranger till the man was fairly inside."
Carrington smiled and shook his head.
"Thin, Bisset; very thin. Why need the man have been a stranger at all?"
Bisset"s face fell.
"But surely you"re not believing yon story that it was Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond after a"?"
His visitor stood absolutely silent for a full minute. Then he seemed suddenly to banish the line of thought he was following.
"Is it quite certain that those two are engaged?" he asked.
Bisset"s face showed his surprise at the question.
"They all say so," said he.
"Have either of them admitted it?"
"No, sir."
"Why don"t they acknowledge it now and get married?"
"They say it"s because they daurna for fear of the scandal."
""They" say again!" commented Carrington. "But, look here, Bisset, you have been in the house all the time. Did you think they were engaged?"
"Honestly, sir, I did not. There"s nae doubt Sir Malcolm was sweet on the young lady, but deil a sign of sweetness on him did I ever see in her!"
"Do they correspond now?"
Bisset shook his head.
"Hardly at a". But of course folks just say they are feared to now."