The Return Of Bulldog Drummond by Sapper Page A

finally doing him to death in the room above. Then he changed clothes, came down and found the supper spread out. While he was in the room he suddenly saw the ghost, which terrified him so much that he daren’t leave. And there you other gentlemen found him. To his dismay, you recognised his clothes, and the blood on the ceiling showed him the game was up. Half tipsy with beer, and with the thought of the ghost in his mind, he said the first story that came into his head.”
    “That sounds very feasible,” said Hardcastle: “very feasible indeed.”
    “Another point that goes to prove it,” continued the Inspector, “was his great reluctance to go upstairs and look at the body – a well-known characteristic of murderers. That’s what happened, gentlemen, or as near to what happened as we are ever likely to get now the man is dead. I don’t wonder, sir” – he turned to Drummond – “that you were taken in for a bit. You didn’t know that there wasn’t a caretaker in the house: besides, it’s amazing the yarns these old lags will spin.”
    “So it seems,” answered Drummond. “By the way, has the weapon with which Marton was murdered been discovered?”
    “Not yet. He probably threw it out of the window, and I’ll have the ground searched thoroughly tomorrow morning. Then we’ll have his fingerprints and absolute proof.”
    “Look here, Mr Inspector,” said Hardcastle in a rather hesitating voice, “I don’t know if what I’m going to suggest is very irregular, but if it is you must put it down to my ignorance of the law. Now I take it we are all agreed that Morris murdered Marton in some such manner as you described, and then blundered into Grimstone Mire. At any rate, Morris can never be brought to trial. Wal – I’ve just obtained a lease of this house; I’m engaged in certain scientific researches, and I must frankly admit I don’t want to be disturbed. Now what I want to know is this: is it necessary to say anything about this ghost? I quite understand that if Morris wasn’t dead it would be impossible not to allude to it: he would tell the same story he told Captain Drummond. But now that he is dead, are we defeating the ends of justice in any way if we keep our mouths shut about it? It can do neither Morris nor Marton any good, and the only result that is going to happen is that this house will be surrounded with swarms of journalists and sightseers.”
    A faint smile twitched round Drummond’s lips, but his face was in the shadow.
    “In addition to that,” Hardcastle continued, “though naturally such a thing will not deter us if it is our duty to speak, I’m sadly afraid we’re all of us going to have our legs pulled nearly off. We have seen it – we know ; but that’s a very different thing from convincing somebody else. If we hadn’t been here tonight, would we have believed it if we’d been told it? Your police are second to none in the world, but they’re a hard-headed body of men. And I can’t help thinking, Inspector, that you’re going to come in for the hell of a lot of chaff from your brother officers. What do you say, Captain Drummond?”
    “Don’t you think,” Drummond murmured, “that in a case of such remarkable psychic interest we ought to get in touch with that jolly old society that goes spook-hunting?”
    “I do not,” said the other firmly. “If, in the interests of justice, the Inspector considers we must speak – that’s one thing. But I flatly refuse to have bunches of people sitting all over the place on the chance of seeing something.”
    “I quite see your point,” agreed Drummond pleasantly. “I believe most of ’em are trained to the house, but it would be deuced boring to have an ancient professor permanently in the bathroom. Well, well – the Inspector must decide. Do we burble of ghosts or do we not?”
    The Inspector cleared his throat. Until Hardcastle’s remarks, that aspect of the case had not struck him. Now it did –