“Mrs. Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman CatholicChurch, and had interested herself very much in the establishmentof the Guild of St. George, which was formed in connection withthe Watt Street Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poorwith cast-off clothing. A meeting of the Guild had been held thatevening at eight, and Mrs. Barclay had hurried over her dinner inorder to be present at it. When leaving the house she was heard bythe coachman to make some commonplace remark to her husband,and to assure him that she would be back before very long. Shethen called for Miss Morrison, a young lady who lives in the nextvilla, and the two went off together to their meeting. It lasted fortyminutes, and at a quarter-past nine Mrs. Barclay returned home,having left Miss Morrison at her door as she passed.
“There is a room which is used as a morning-room at Lachine.
This faces the road and opens by a large glass folding-door on tothe lawn. The lawn is thirty yards across, and is only divided fromthe highway by a low wall with an iron rail above it. It was intothis room that Mrs. Barclay went upon her return. The blindswere not down, for the room was seldom used in the evening, butMrs. Barclay herself lit the lamp and then rang the bell, askingJane Stewart, the house-maid, to bring her a cup of tea, which wasquite contrary to her usual habits. The colonel had been sitting inthe dining-room, but hearing that his wife had returned he joinedher in the morning-room. The coachman saw him cross the halland enter it. He was never seen again alive.
“The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the endof ten minutes; but the maid, as she approached the door, wassurprised to hear the voices of her master and mistress in furiousaltercation. She knocked without receiving any answer, and eventurned the handle, but only to find that the door was locked uponthe inside. Naturally enough she ran down to tell the cook, andthe two women with the coachman came up into the hall andlistened to the dispute which was still raging. They all agreed thatonly two voices were to be heard, those of Barclay and of his wife.
Barclay’s remarks were subdued and abrupt, so that none of themwere audible to the listeners. The lady’s, on the other hand, weremost bitter, and when she raised her voice could be plainly heard.
‘You coward!’ she repeated over and over again. ‘What can be donenow? What can be done now? Give me back my life. I will neverso much as breathe the same air with you again! You coward! Youcoward!’ Those were scraps of her conversation, ending in a suddendreadful cry in the man’s voice, with a crash, and a piercing screamfrom the woman. Convinced that some tragedy had occurred, thecoachman rushed to the door and strove to force it, while screamafter scream issued from within. He was unable, however, to makehis way in, and the maids were too distracted with fear to be ofany assistance to him. A sudden thought struck him, however, andhe ran through the hall door and round to the lawn upon whichthe long French windows open. One side of the window was open,which I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and hepassed without difficulty into the room. His mistress had ceasedto scream and was stretched insensible upon a couch, while withhis feet tilted over the side of an armchair, and his head upon theground near the corner of the fender, was lying the unfortunatesoldier stone dead in a pool of his own blood.
“Naturally, the coachman’s first thought, on finding that hecould do nothing for his master, was to open the door. But herean unexpected and singular difficulty presented itself. The key wasnot in the inner side of the door, nor could he find it anywhere inthe room. He went out again, therefore, through the window, andhaving obtained the help of a policeman and of a medical man, hereturned. The lady, against whom naturally the strongest suspicionrested, was removed to her room, still in a state of insensibility.
The colonel’s body was then placed upon the sofa, and a carefulexamination made of the scene of the tragedy.
“The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was sufferingwas found to be a jagged cut some two inches long at the backpart of his head, which had evidently been caused by a violentblow from a blunt weapon. Nor was it difficult to guess what thatweapon may have been. Upon the floor, close to the body, was lyinga singular club of hard carved wood with a bone handle. The colonelpossessed a varied collection of weapons brought from the differentcountries in which he had fought, and it is conjectured by the policethat his club was among his trophies. The servants deny having seen itbefore, but among the numerous curiosities in the house it is possiblethat it may have been overlooked. Nothing else of importance wasdiscovered in the room by the police, save the inexplicable fact thatneither upon Mrs. Barclay’s person nor upon that of the victim norin any part of the room was the missing key to be found. The doorhad eventually to be opened by a locksmith from Aldershot.
“That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the Tuesdaymorning I, at the request of Major Murphy, went down toAldershot to supplement the efforts of the police. I think that youwill acknowledge that the problem was already one of interest, butmy observations soon made me realize that it was in truth muchmore extraordinary than would at first sight appear.