"Caldew thinks that the murderer entered the house by scaling the
bedroom window, and made his exit by the same means. He bases that view
on Miss Heredith's belief that the window was closed when she was in the
bedroom before dinner. After the murder was committed the window was
found open. But Miss Heredith's statement about the closed window does
not amount to very much. She does not actually know whether the window
was open or shut, because the window curtains were completely drawn at
the time she was in the room. Those curtains are so thick and heavy that
they would keep out the air whether the window was open or shut, and
account for the stuffy atmosphere in a room which had been occupied all
day.
"I do not regard the open window as a clue one way or the other. The one
thing we must not lose sight of is that nobody can say definitely when
it was opened. It may have been opened by Mrs. Heredith herself before
Miss Heredith came into the room, or the murderer may have flung it open
and escaped from the room that way after committing the murder.
Personally, I do not think that he did, but I am not prepared altogether
to exclude the possibility of his having done so. But I am convinced
that he did not enter the bedroom by scaling the outside wall and
getting in through the window. In the first place, there are no marks of
any kind on the window sill or the window catch. There is not very much
one way or another in the absence of marks on the sill or even on the
catch, supposing the window was locked. The murderer might have opened
the catch from outside without leaving a mark--I have known the trick to
be done--and he might have got into the room without leaving any marks
on the sill, particularly if he wore rubber boots. But, what is far more
important, there are no marks on the wall outside, or any disturbance or
displacement of the Virginia creeper which covers a portion of the wall,
to suggest that the murderer climbed up to the room that way. I think it
is certain that if he had done so he would have left his marks on the
one or the other. The wall is of a soft old brickwork which would
scratch and show marks plainly, and the Virginia creeper would break
away. In any case, as I said this morning, it would barely sustain the
weight of a boy, or a very slight girl. Finally, there are no marks of
footsteps approaching the wall in the garden outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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