I explained the circumstances carefully.
“A telephone message, you say? From the butler?”
“A message that I never sent,” declared Parker earnestly. “I’ve not been near the telephone the whole evening. The others can bear me out that I haven’t.”
“Very odd, that. Did it sound like Parker’s voice, doctor?”
“Well—I can’t say I noticed. I took it for granted, you see.”
“Naturally. Well, you got up here, broke in the door, and found poor Mr. Ackroyd like this. How long should you say he had been dead, doctor?”
“Half an hour at least—perhaps longer,” I said.
“The door was locked on the inside, you say? What about the window?”
“I myself closed and bolted it earlier in the evening at Mr. Ackroyd’s request.”
The inspector strode across to it and threw back the curtains.
“Well, it’s open now, anyway,” he remarked.
True enough, the window was open, the lower sash being raised to its fullest extent.
The inspector produced a pocket torch and flashed it along the sill outside.