Free The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth

Inspector. “Mrs. Rush is bedridden, so I’m told.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œEver known her to be out of her bed?”
    â€œNot the six years I’ve been coming here.”
    â€œWell, you went down and told Rush Mr. Craddock was dead, and the pair of you came up together. It wouldn’t be less than two minutes you were away, I take it, and it might be as much as three. And the flat door standing open all the time?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWell, someone got in and smudged those footprints—that’s clear enough. And when you got upstairs you saw Mr. Renshaw coming out of number nine, and Miss Bingham half way down the stairs?”
    Peterson said “Yes” again.
    In answer to questions about the revolver, he said it was Mr. Craddock’s own revolver. Mr. Craddock kept it in the second draw of his writing-table—“That one on the left, sir.” No, the drawer wasn’t kept locked—never had been so far as he knew. Mr. Craddock told him once that the revolver was loaded. That would be about six months ago. He couldn’t say why Mr. Craddock had mentioned it. Asked whether he had ever handled the weapon, he replied, “Oh, no, sir—certainly not, sir.”
    â€œDid you see anyone else handle it this morning?”
    Peterson coughed.
    â€œI beg your pardon, sir.”
    â€œIf it’s for coughing, you needn’t—if it’s for not answering what I’ve just asked you, it’s no good. Did you see anyone handle that revolver?”
    Peterson cleared his throat and said, “Yes, sir.”
    â€œOut with it, man!”
    â€œIt was Mr. Renshaw, sir. He came in as it were right behind us—behind Mr. Rush and me—”
    â€œYes—go on.”
    â€œWell, sir, we looked at Mr. Craddock, and he was dead all right. And Mr. Renshaw he says, ‘Good God!’ and goes down on his knees and takes hold of his wrist. And Mr. Rush says, ‘He’s gone! Look at the hole in his head!’ And then he says to me to look lively and ring up for the police, so I went over to the table and took up the receiver off the telephone. And then I saw Mr. Renshaw had got up. He went across to where the revolver was and he picked it up. And Mr. Rush said very sharp, ‘You put that down, Mr. Peter! There’s nothing must be touched.’ Mr. Renshaw he had the revolver by the handle.”
    The Inspector frowned.
    â€œI suppose you mean the butt?”
    â€œWell, you know best, sir. He had it in his right hand the way you’d hold it if you were going to fire—at least, that’s the way it looked to me. And when Mr. Rush said that, he said, Mr. Renshaw did, ‘Quite true, Rush,’ and he shifted the pistol into his left hand, taking hold of it by the other end, and he dropped it back on the floor as near as could be where it was before. And Mr. Rush spoke to him very sharp indeed and told him he’d be getting us all into trouble.”
    The Inspector frowned more deeply still.
    â€œI want to get this quite clear. You say Mr. Renshaw took hold of the revolver first by the butt and then by the barrel?”
    â€œHe took hold first one end and then the other.”
    That concluded the examination of Peterson, and he was allowed to depart.
    â€œNow what did he do that for?” said the Inspector. “A gentleman like Mr. Renshaw—army officer, isn’t he?—he knows as well as you and I do that he oughtn’t to have touched that revolver. Now, if it had been Peterson that doesn’t know the muzzle from the butt—him and his handles!”—here the Inspector snorted—“you’d say he’d lost his head—and not a lot of it to lose either! But Mr. Renshaw, he knows as well as you and me that that weapon would have to be examined for fingerprints, and when he goes plastering his hands all over it—well, Abbott, what do you make of