denied point blank using anything of the kind. And I suppose one can take his word for it.”
“Yes, indeed, poor devil.”
“Damned young fool,” said Colonel Melchett. “Sorry, Clement. But he really is! Somehow one can’t get used to thinking of him as a murderer.”
“Any motive?” asked Haydock, taking a final draught of coffee and pushing back his chair.
“He says they quarrelled and he lost his temper and shot him.”
“Hoping for manslaughter, eh?” The doctor shook his head. “That story doesn’t hold water. He stole up behind him as he was writing and shot him through the head. Precious little ‘quarrel’ about that.”
“Anyway, there wouldn’t have been time for a quarrel,” I said, remembering Miss Marple’s words. “To creep up, shoot him, alter the clock hands back to 6:20, and leave again would have taken him all his time. I shall never forget his face when I met him outside the gate, or the way he said, ‘You want to see Protheroe—oh, you’ll see him all right!’ That in itself ought to have made me suspicious of what had just taken place a few minutes before.”
Haydock stared at me.
“What do you mean—what had just taken place? When do you think Redding shot him?”
“A few minutes before I got to the house.”
The doctor shook his head.
“Impossible. Plumb impossible. He’d been dead much longer than that.”