"And I say somewhere midway between the two," said Crewe, with a smile.
"But we will soon see. Just hold down the end of this measuring tape, one
of you." He produced a measuring tape as he spoke, and started to unwind
it, walking rapidly towards the house as he did so. "Sixty-two yards!" he
said, as he returned. He made a note of the distance in his pocket-book.
"So much for that," he said, "but that's not enough. I want you to stand
under the library window, Rolfe, by that chestnut-tree in front of it,
and act as pivot for the measuring tape while I look at that window from
various angles. My idea is to go in a semicircle right round the garden,
starting at the garage by the edge of the wood, so as to see the library
window and measure the distance at every possible point at which Kemp
could have stood."

"You're going to a lot of trouble for nothing, if your object is to try
and prove that he couldn't have seen into the window," grunted Inspector
Chippenfield, in a mystified voice. "Why, I can see plainly into the
window from here."

Crewe smiled, but did not reply. Followed by Rolfe, he went back to the
tree by the library window, where he posted Rolfe with the end of the
tape in his hand. Then he walked slowly back across the garden in the
direction of the garage, keeping his eye on the library window on the
first floor from which Kemp, according to his evidence, had seen Sir
Horace leaning out after Holymead had left the house. He returned to the
tree, noting the measurement in his book as he did so, and then repeated
the process, walking backwards with his eye fixed on the window, but this
time taking a line more to the left. Again and again he repeated the
process, until finally he had walked backwards from the tree in narrow
segments of a big semicircle, finishing up on the boundary of the Italian
garden on the other side of the grounds, and almost directly opposite to