"Oh, go and look for yourself," cried Herries in a sort of fury.
"Hewitt's murdered and his papers stolen, that's all."
He turned his back again and sat down with a thud; his square
shoulders were shaking. Harold March darted out of the doorway into
the back garden with its steep slope of statues.
The first thing he saw was Doctor Prince, the detective, peering
through his spectacles at something on the ground; the second was
the thing he was peering at. Even after the sensational news he had
heard inside, the sight was something of a sensation.
The monstrous stone image of Britannia was lying prone and face
downward on the garden path; and there stuck out at random from
underneath it, like the legs of a smashed fly, an arm clad in a
white shirt sleeve and a leg clad in a khaki trouser, and hair of
the unmistakable sandy gray that belonged to Horne Fisher's
unfortunate uncle. There were pools of blood and the limbs were
quite stiff in death.
"Couldn't this have been an accident?" said March, finding words at
last.
"Look for yourself, I say," repeated the harsh voice of Herries, who
had followed him with restless movements out of the door. "The
papers are gone, I tell you. The fellow tore the coat off the corpse
and cut the papers out of the inner pocket.
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