Bathurst, Anthony (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction
“Never mind for the time being—but if you look carefully at where I’m
standing—you’ll be able to see for yourself.” Peter looked—but saw
nothing to solve his own difficulty. He shook his head, as though to
give point to his failure to grasp Anthony’s idea. The next words the
latter spoke rather startled him. “Stewart stood where you are
standing and fired in the direction of where I am standing—then
something happened that caused him to put his revolver back in the
pocket of his dressing-gown—the left-hand pocket, remember—and to take
a rather changed view of the situation in which he found himself.”
“What was that?” demanded Peter.
“_He recognized the interloper—the interloper who afterwards murdered
him._”
“Why then,” countered Peter instantly, “didn’t he recognize him at
first—before he fired the shot? You either know or don’t know a
person—it isn’t as though Stewart fired from a distance—you say
yourself that he fired from the doorway only a few feet away—when he
entered the room—the fact that he _did_ fire in that way seems to me
to show conclusively that he _didn’t_ know the person—that he fired at
a stranger. You don’t blaze away with a revolver at anybody you happen
to see—regardless of consequences.” He lit a cigarette with the air of
a man that defies contradiction.
“An excellent piece of reasoning on your part,” smiled Anthony, “but
there’s one little possibility that I fear you may have been tempted
to overlook.”
“What’s that?” retorted Peter.
“I’m not blaming you, my dear chap. I overlooked it myself in the
first place; _supposing the conditions changed_.”
Peter wrinkled his brow. “Conditions,” he said, in a puzzled kind of
way, “what conditions do you mean?”
“The conditions of the room!” Anthony watched Peter’s mystified
expression. “As I said just now, Daventry, I was slow myself to pick
up the crucial point. When Stewart fired his shot—he fired _in the
dark_. When the intruder disclosed his identity, Stewart put his
revolver away—he felt safe. So safe that he put it away in his
left-hand pocket—a right-handed man doesn’t do that if he wants to use
it again. And unhappily, events proved that his faith in the situation
brought about his death—that was why I told you to look where I was
standing.”
He pointed to the wall to the right of the bookcase directly facing
the doorway. Peter’s eyes followed the direction of his finger.
“The electric light switch?” he queried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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