"The trouble is," said Fisher, "that in a few days we should have
had a very agreeable alternative--of hanging an innocent man or
knocking the British Empire to hell."
"Do you mean to say," asked Grayne, "that this infernal crime is not
to be punished?"
Fisher looked at him steadily.
"It is already punished," he said.
After a moment's pause he went on. "You reconstructed the crime
with admirable skill, old chap, and nearly all you said was true.
Two men with two coffee cups did go into the library and did put
their cups on the bookstand and did go together to the well, and one
of them was a murderer and had put poison in the other's cup. But it
was not done while Boyle was looking at the revolving bookcase. He
did look at it, though, searching for the Budge book with the note
in it, but I fancy that Hastings had already moved it to the shelves
on the wall. It was part of that grim game that he should find it
first.
"Now, how does a man search a revolving bookcase? He does not
generally hop all round it in a squatting attitude, like a frog. He
simply gives it a touch and makes it revolve."
He was frowning at the floor as he spoke, and there was a light
under his heavy lids that was not often seen there. The mysticism
that was buried deep under all the cynicism of his experience was
awake and moving in the depths.
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