wanted them.

He laughed suddenly, and lit his pipe.

"I was wanting a new profession," he thought, "and now I've found it.
Antony Gillingham, our own private sleuthhound. I shall begin to-day."

Whatever Antony Gillingham's other qualifications for his new
profession, he had at any rate a brain which worked clearly and quickly.
And this clear brain of his had already told him that he was the only
person in the house at that moment who was unhandicapped in the search
for truth. The inspector had arrived in it to find a man dead and a man
missing. It was extremely probable, no doubt, that the missing man
had shot the dead man. But it was more than extremely probable, it was
almost certain that the Inspector would start with the idea that this
extremely probable solution was the one true solution, and that, in
consequence, he would be less disposed to consider without prejudice any
other solution. As regards all the rest of them--Cayley, the guests,
the servants--they also were prejudiced; in favour of Mark (or possibly,
for all he knew, against Mark); in favour of, or against, each other;
they had formed some previous opinion, from what had been said that
morning, of the sort of man Robert was. No one of them could consider
the matter with an unbiased mind.

But Antony could. He knew nothing about Mark; he knew nothing about
Robert. He had seen the dead man before he was told who the dead man
was. He knew that a tragedy had happened before he knew that anybody was
missing. Those first impressions, which are so vitally important, had
been received solely on the merits of the case; they were founded on the
evidence of his senses, not on the evidence of his emotions or of other
people's senses. He was in a much better position for getting at the
truth than was the Inspector.

It is possible that, in thinking this, Antony was doing Inspector Birch
a slight injustice. Birch was certainly prepared to believe that Mark
had shot his brother. Robert had been shown into the office (witness
Audrey); Mark had gone in to Robert (witness Cayley); Mark and Robert
had been heard talking (witness Elsie); there was a shot (witness
everybody); the room had been entered and Robert's body had been found
(witness Cayley and Gillingham). And Mark was missing. Obviously,
then, Mark had killed his brother: accidentally, as Cayley believed, or
deliberately, as Elsie's evidence seemed to suggest. There was no point
in looking for a difficult