Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/320

 this is the indication of the prints, in a southerly direction.”

“Straight toward the Guest House,” muttered Inspector Aylesbury.

“Roughly,” corrected Harley. “He was fronting in that direction, certainly, but his head may have been turned either to the right or to the left. You observe from the great depth of the toe-marks that on this spot he actually fell. Then, here”—he moved the light—“is the impression of his knee, and here again”

He shone the white ray upon a discoloured patch of grass, and then returned the lamp to his pocket.

“I am going to make a hole in the turf,” he continued, “directly between these two footprints, which seem to indicate that the Colonel was standing in the military position of attention at the moment that he met his death.”

With the end of the ash stick, which was pointed, he proceeded to do this.

“Colonel Menendez,” he went on, “stood rather over six feet in his shoes. The stick which now stands upright in the turf measures six feet, from the chalk mark up to which I have buried it to the slot which I have cut in the top. Into this slot I now wedge my sheet of cardboard.”

As he placed the sheet of cardboard in the slot which he had indicated, I saw that a round hole was cut in it some six inches in diameter. We watched these proceedings in silence, then:

“If you will allow me to adjust the candle, gentlemen,” said Harley, “which has burned a little too low for my purpose, I shall proceed to the second part of this experiment.”

He walked up to the yew tree, and by means of