Note this point, Inspector: wearing
an overcoat. He descended to the study and found Mr. Camber writing.
Now, Ah 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.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291