Cyril described the incidents of the entire interview that Standish had
with Mr. Westwood, up to the point of his throwing the revolver out of
the window. He was not, of course, prepared to say that the
revolver which was found at Mr. Westwood's hand (deposed to by the
under-gardener) was the same weapon, but he said that it seemed to him
to be the same. He had not seen the man pick up the revolver from
the grass where it had fallen. The man had left the house, not by the
window, by which he had entered, but by the hall door. In reply to a
question put to him Cyril said that if the revolver had been left on the
grass it might have been picked up by any one aware of the fact that it
was there. Neither he nor Mr. Westwood had picked it up. They had not
walked together in the direction of the Italian garden, but through the
park, which was on the other side of the house. They had not discussed
the incident of the man's entering the drawing-room, except for a few
minutes, nor did it seem to occur to Mr. Westwood that he might be in
jeopardy were he to walk through the grounds. He appeared to disregard
the man's threats.
The surgeon who had examined the body gave a horribly technical
description of the wound made by the bullet, and said he had no
hesitation in swearing that the revolver was fired from a distance of at
least twenty feet from the deceased. He had a wide experience of bullet
wounds, but it did not need a wide experience to enable a surgeon to
pronounce an opinion as to whether or not a wound had been produced by a
point-blank discharge of a weapon, whether revolver or rifle.
Major Borrowdaile and the police sergeant gave some evidence regarding
the arrest of Standish, and the butler, who was the first to enter the
drawingroom in the morning, stated that he had found the French window
open. He fancied that his master had gone out for a stroll before
breakfast. He also said that he had heard in the early part of the night
the sound of several shots; but he had taken it for granted that a party
were shooting rabbits in the warren, In any case the sound of a shot
at night in the park or the shrubberies would not cause alarm among the
servants: they would take it for granted that a keeper had fired at one
of the wild-cats or perhaps at a night-hawk, or some creature of the
woods inimical to the young pheasants.
This was considered sufficient evidence by the coroner's jury, and
the man was handed over, to be formally committed by the bench of
magistrates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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