wenty pounds in a sitting some weeks before from
godfrey milner and lord balmoral. so much for his recent
history, as it came out at the inquest.
on the evening of the crime he returned from the club
exactly at ten. his mother and sister were out spending
the evening with a relation. the servant deposed that
she heard him enter the front room on the second floor,
generally used as his sitting-room. she had lit a fire
there, and as it smoked she had opened the window. no
sound was heard from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour
of the return of lady maynooth and her daughter. desiring
to say good-night, she had attempted to enter her son's
room. the door was locked on the inside, and no answer
could be got to their cries and knocking. help was
obtained and the door forced. the unfortunate young man
was found lying near the table. his head had been horribly
mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but no weapon of
any sort was to be found in the room. on the table lay two
bank-notes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in
silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of
varying amount. there were some figures also upon a sheet
of paper with the names of some club friends opposite to
them, from which it was conjectured that before his death
he was endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at
cards.
a minute examination of the circumstances served only to
make the case more complex. in the first place, no reason
could be given why the young man should have fastened the
door upon the inside. there was the possibility that the
murderer had done this and had afterwards escaped by the
window. the drop was at least twenty feet, however, and a
bed of crocuses in full bloom lay beneath. neither the
flowers nor the earth showed any sign of having been
disturbed, nor were there any marks upon the narrow strip
of grass which separated the house from the road.
apparently, therefore, it was the young man himself who had
fastened the door. but how did he come by his death? no
one could have climbed up to the window without leaving
traces. suppose a man had fired through the window, it
would indeed be a remarkable shot who could with a revolver
inflict so deadly a wound. again, park lane is a
frequented thoroughfare, and there is a cab-stand within
a hundred yards of the house. no one had heard a shot.
and yet there was the dead man, and there the revolver bullet,
which had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and
so inflicted a wound which must have caused instantaneous
death. such were the circumstances of the park lane
mystery, which were further complicated by entire absence
of motive, since, as i have said, young adair was not known
to have any enemy, and no attempt had been made to remove
the money or valuables in the room.
all day i turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring
to hit upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and
to find that line of least resistance which my poor friend
had declared to be the starting-point of every investigation.
i confess that i made little progress. in the evening i
strolled across the park, and found myself about six o'clock
at the oxford street end of park lane. a group of loafers
upon the pavements, all staring up at a particular window,
directed me to the house which i had come to see. a tall,
thin man with coloured glasses, whom i strongly suspected
of being a plain-clothes detective, was pointing out some
theory of his own, while the others crowded round to listen
to what he said. i got as near him as i could, but his
observations seemed to me to be absurd, so i withdrew again
in some disgust. as i did so i struck against an elderly
deformed man, who had been behind me, and i knocked down
several books which he was carrying. i remember that as i
picked them up i observed the title of one of them,
"the origin of tree worship," and it struck me that the
fellow must be some poor bibliophile who, either as a trade
or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure volumes.
i endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was
evident that these books which i had so unfortunately
maltreated were very precious objects in the eyes of their
owner. with a snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel,
and i saw his curved back and white side-whiskers disappear
among the throng.
my observations of no. 427, park lane, did little to clear
up the problem in which i was interested. the house was
separated from the street by a low wall and railing, the
whole not more than five feet high. it was perfectly easy,
therefore, for anyone to get into the garden, but the
window was entirely inaccessible, since there was no
water-pipe or anything which could help the most active man
to climb it. more puzzled than ever i retraced my steps to
kensington. i had not been in my study five m
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