the sergeant, "that it was usually raised at sunset.
That would be nearer half-past four than six at this time of year."

"Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea," said Ames. "I couldn't raise it
until they went. Then I wound it up myself."

"Then it comes to this," said the sergeant: "If anyone came from
outside--if they did--they must have got in across the bridge before
six and been in hiding ever since, until Mr. Douglas came into the room
after eleven."

"That is so! Mr. Douglas went round the house every night the last
thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That
brought him in here. The man was waiting and shot him. Then he got away
through the window and left his gun behind him. That's how I read it;
for nothing else will fit the facts."

The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the
floor. The initials V. V. and under them the number 341 were rudely
scrawled in ink upon it.

"What's this?" he asked, holding it up.

Barker looked at it with curiosity. "I never noticed it before," he
said. "The murderer must have left it behind him."

"V. V.--341. I can make no sense of that."

The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. "What's V. V.?
Somebody's initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr. Wood?"

It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front of
the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil Barker pointed
to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.

"Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday," he said. "I saw him
myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big picture above it.
That accounts for the hammer."

"We'd best put it back on the rug where we found it," said the
sergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. "It will want
the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing. It
will be a London job before it is finished." He raised the hand lamp
and walked slowly round the room. "Hullo!" he cried, excitedly, drawing
the window curtain to one side. "What o'clock were those curtains
drawn?"

"When the lamps were lit," said the butler. "It would be shortly after
four."

"Someone had been hiding here, sure enough." He held down the light,
and the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner. "I'm
bound to say this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker. It looks as if the
man got into the house after four when the curtains were drawn and
before six when the bridge was ra