Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/240

232 Tsong sleeps in a room adjoining the kitchen on the ground floor. We passed his quarters on our way to the garden a moment ago. Of course, you had noted this? Mr. Camber is therefore eliminated from our list of suspects.”

The Inspector was growing very red, but ere he had time to speak Harley continued:

“The first of these three persons to have heard a shot fired at the end of the garden would have been Ah Tsong, and not Mrs. Camber, whose room is upstairs and in the front of the house. If it had been fired by Mr. Camber from the spot upon which we now stand, he would still have been in the garden at the moment when Mrs. Camber was ringing the bell for Ah Tsong. Mr. Camber must therefore have returned from the end of the garden to the study, and have passed Ah Tsong’s room—unheard by the occupant—between the time that the bell rang and the time that Ah Tsong went upstairs. This I submit to be impossible. There is an alternative: it is that he slipped in whilst Ah Tsong, standing on the landing above, was receiving his mistress’s orders. I submit that the alternative is also impossible. We thus eliminate Mr. Camber from the case, as I have already mentioned.”

“Eliminate—eliminate!” cried the Inspector, beginning to recover power of speech. “Do you think you can fuddle me with a mass of words, Mr. Harley? Allow me to point out to you, sir, that you are in no way officially associated with this matter.”

“You have already drawn my attention to the fact, Inspector, but it can do no harm to jog my memory.”

Harley spoke entirely without bitterness, and I, who knew his every mood, realized that he was thoroughly