"
"Well, then, everyone is agreed that after the alarm was given
only a minute at the most had passed before the whole
household--not Mr. Cecil Barker alone, though he claims to have
been the first, but Ames and all of them were on the spot. Do
you tell me that in that time the guilty person managed to make
footmarks in the corner, open the window, mark the sill with
blood, take the wedding ring off the dead man's finger, and all
the rest of it? It's impossible!"
"You put it very clearly," said Holmes. "I am inclined to agree
with you."
"Well, then, we are driven back to the theory that it was done by
someone from outside. We are still faced with some big
difficulties; but anyhow they have ceased to be impossibilities.
The man got into the house between four-thirty and six; that is
to say, between dusk and the time when the bridge was raised.
There had been some visitors, and the door was open; so there was
nothing to prevent him. He may have been a common burglar, or he
may have had some private grudge against Mr. Douglas. Since Mr.
Douglas has spent most of his life in America, and this shotgun
seems to be an American weapon, it would seem that the private
grudge is the more likely theory.
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