夜雨聆风What did it mean?
It meant – if anything at all was to make sense – that it was not ColonelLuttrell who shot Mrs Luttrell, but X.
And that was clearly impossible. I had seen the whole thing. It was Col-onel Luttrell who had fired the shot. No other shot had been fired.
Unless – But surely that would be impossible. No, perhaps not impossible– merely highly improbable. But possible, yes … Supposing that someoneelse had waited his moment, and at the exact instant when Colonel Lut-trell had fired (at a rabbit), this other person had fired at Mrs Luttrell.
Then only the one shot would have been heard. Or, even with a slight dis-crepancy, it would have been put down as an echo. (Now I come to thinkof it, there had been an echo, surely.)
But no, that was absurd. There were ways of deciding exactly whatweapon a bullet had been fired from. The marks on the bullet must agreewith the rifling of the barrel.
But that, I remembered, was only when the police were anxious to es-tablish what weapon had fired the shot. There would have been no en-quiry in this business. For Colonel Luttrell would have been quite as cer-tain as everyone else that it was he who had fired the fatal shot. That factwould have been admitted, accepted without question; there would havebeen no question of tests. The only doubt would have been whether theshot was fired accidentally or with criminal intent – a question that couldnever be resolved.