Report of Post-Mortem Examination

Deceased: Major Cedric William Ashwell, MC Age: 62 years Date of Examination: 13th January 1946 Place of Examination: Mortuary, Devizes Cottage Hospital, Wiltshire Examining Physician: Dr Hugh Randall, MB, BS, Police Surgeon for the Devizes Division

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External Appearance

The body is that of a well-nourished man of above-average height, approximately six feet one inch, weighing an estimated fourteen stone. The complexion is weathered. The hair is white and thinning. A neatly trimmed moustache, also white. The hands are large, with liver spots and thickened nails consistent with age. An old scar runs along the outer aspect of the left forearm, approximately four inches, consistent with a healed shrapnel wound.

The deceased is dressed in a tweed jacket, woollen waistcoat, flannel trousers, carpet slippers, and a knitted pullover beneath the jacket. A pocket watch on a chain in the waistcoat pocket reads 9:51, wound and running. The clothing is undisturbed on the torso and lower body. No spectacles were found on the person or in any pocket.

Rigor mortis is fully established. Lividity is fixed in the anterior surfaces of the body, chest, abdomen, and the fronts of the thighs, consistent with the body having lain face down since death.

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External Injuries

A single depressed wound is present on the right temple, approximately two and a half inches above the ear. The wound is roughly oval, measuring one and three-quarter inches at its widest point by one and a quarter inches. The edges are irregular and abraded, with a crescentic pattern to the abrasion consistent with a curved striking surface. The surrounding skin shows swelling and discolouration extending approximately three inches from the wound margins.

There is heavy bruising behind the right ear and along the right jaw. A secondary abrasion is present on the right cheek, consistent with the face striking a hard flat surface after the initial blow. The left side of the face is unmarked.

There are no defensive wounds on the hands or arms. No bruising to the wrists or forearms. No marks on the neck or trunk. No other injuries to the scalp.

The wound track indicates the blow was delivered at a slightly upward angle, from a position approximately level with or slightly below the victim's head, striking the right temple and driving inward and upward. This trajectory is consistent with a blow swung in a horizontal or slightly rising arc by a person standing at the same height as the victim. It is not consistent with an object falling vertically from a height of eight feet or more, which would produce a wound with a downward or vertical trajectory and a different pattern of fracture.

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Internal Examination

The skull shows a depressed fracture of the right temporal bone, approximately one and a half inches in diameter, with radiating fracture lines extending into the parietal and sphenoid bones. Fragments of bone have been driven into the underlying brain tissue. An extradural haematoma, estimated at four ounces, is present between the bone and the dura mater. The brain shows contusion and laceration of the right temporal lobe at the site of the fracture, with contrecoup bruising of the left frontal lobe.

Death resulted from the combined effects of the skull fracture, the extradural haemorrhage, and the brain laceration. Unconsciousness would have been immediate. Death would have followed within twenty to forty minutes without medical intervention.

The remaining organs are unremarkable for a man of this age. The heart weighs 380 grams and shows moderate left ventricular hypertrophy. The coronary arteries display moderate atherosclerosis. The liver is slightly enlarged. The stomach contains approximately half a pint of partially digested food and a brown liquid consistent with cocoa. No unusual odour. No alcohol or sedatives detected in the blood.

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Items Recovered from the Person

1. Pocket watch on chain (reading 9:51, wound and running)
2. Leather wallet containing four pounds, seven shillings, and sixpence
3. A ring of five keys
4. A folded handkerchief, white cotton
5. A small penknife

Note: No spectacles were recovered from the body or from the clothing.

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Opinion

Death resulted from blunt force trauma to the right temple, causing a depressed skull fracture, extradural haemorrhage, and brain laceration. The wound was inflicted by a heavy object with a curved surface.

The wound trajectory, slightly upward and horizontal, is consistent with a blow struck by a person standing at the same level as the victim. It is not consistent with an object falling from a height above the victim's head. A falling object of this weight would produce a wound with a predominantly downward trajectory, concentrated at the crown or upper surface of the skull, with a compression pattern rather than the lateral depressed fracture observed here.

The absence of defensive wounds suggests the victim did not see the blow coming or had no opportunity to raise his arms.

Based on the degree of rigor, the fixed lividity, and the environmental temperature of the entrance hall (unheated, approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit), I estimate death occurred between 21:45 and 22:15 hours on Saturday 12th January 1946.

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H.J. Randall, MB, BS Police Surgeon, Devizes Division 13th January 1946

Notes on the Death of Major C.W. Ashwell, MC

Detective Sergeant Walter Briggs, Wiltshire County Constabulary Case opened: 13th January 1946

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Initial Observations

Called to Hartley Grange at 07:20 hours on Sunday morning by PC Dunning. Did not arrive until 09:30, on account of having to collect Constable Pugh from Hartley St Martin and the fact that Pugh's bicycle had a flat tyre. These things always happen on a Sunday.

The house is a stone-built Georgian manor on the eastern edge of the village, requisitioned since 1941 as a convalescent home for wounded officers. Eight officers in residence, two nursing sisters, a matron, a cook, and an orderly. The sort of establishment that requires three people to explain what the other three people do.

Major Ashwell, the owner, was found dead at the foot of the main staircase in the entrance hall at approximately 06:50 by Mrs Frome, the cook. He was lying face down on the flagstones. A marble bust, approximately two feet tall, depicting a Roman emperor, was on its side on the flagstones beside the body. A large quantity of blood beneath the right side of the head, partly dried. The bust appeared to have fallen from its plinth on the half-landing above, striking the Major as he crossed below.

First impression was an accident. Country houses are full of heavy objects balanced on things they should not be balanced on, and the half-landing plinth is roughly eight feet above the hall floor. The bust weighs approximately three stone. An elderly man walking beneath at the wrong moment. Tragic. Plausible. The sort of thing a coroner signs off on before lunch.

But the post-mortem has changed the picture. Dr Randall reports the wound to the right temple was struck at a slightly upward angle, horizontally. A bust falling from eight feet above would produce a downward impact on the top or crown of the head. The angle is wrong for a falling object. Someone stood in front of Major Ashwell and struck him.

Which means I am not going home early after all.

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Persons of Interest

Captain Leonard Vickers

The most obvious suspect by a comfortable margin, and he does not seem inclined to make himself less obvious.

On the afternoon of the 11th of January, Vickers confronted Major Ashwell in the entrance hall in front of two nursing sisters. Ashwell had intercepted a letter Vickers wrote to the War Office complaining about conditions at the home. The argument was fierce. Sister Price and Sister Gill both describe raised voices. Vickers called Ashwell "a tyrant who treats wounded men like boarders in a workhouse." Ashwell called him an ungrateful whelp and threatened to have him transferred. The sort of exchange that would empty a pub, let alone an entrance hall.

Vickers is a Royal Engineers officer. Strong upper body despite the injured leg. He walks with a stick and a considerable amount of indignation. He claims to have been playing chess with Captain Boyle in the common room until half past ten, then went directly to bed. His room is on the first floor, directly above the study.

Captain Boyle, spoken to separately, says the game ended at half past nine, not half past ten. That is a full hour unaccounted for. When I put this to Vickers he became evasive, which is not a quality I have otherwise noticed in him. The man does not strike me as someone who is evasive about anything, ever.

Vickers's walking stick was found propped against the newel post at the bottom of the staircase on Sunday morning. He claims he took it upstairs with him. No one admits to moving it. The stick places him at the foot of the staircase, the precise location where Ashwell was killed.

Also: Vickers remarked in passing that the bust was "a hazard, perched up there on that narrow shelf." He said he had warned Ashwell about it. This suggests awareness of the bust's weight and position. In a man with engineering training, that knowledge takes on a different colour.

Vickers had motive (the intercepted letter and public humiliation), an hour unaccounted for, physical capability, and his walking stick was found at the scene. He is my primary line of enquiry. I should note that Vickers appears to agree with this assessment. He seems almost flattered to be a suspect, which is not usually how guilty men behave, but I have been wrong about that before.

Sister Margaret Price

Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. Has served at Hartley Grange for two years. A careful, composed woman who answers questions as though she is filling in a medical chart. Every fact in order, every detail accounted for.

I have learned that Major Ashwell discovered Sister Price in a relationship with one of the convalescent officers, Lieutenant Hargreaves, and threatened to report her to the matron-in-chief. For a senior nursing sister, this would mean disgrace and the loss of her pension. She did not volunteer this information. I had to prise it out of her, and she yielded it with the reluctance of someone handing over a personal letter at a customs desk.

She says she was in the nurses' sitting room on the first floor from 21:00, writing letters. Sister Gill confirms she was there until 22:00, when Gill went to bed. After that, Price was alone until she retired at 23:00.

At 22:00, she says she left briefly to check on Lieutenant Crosby, who had been feverish, and was on the first-floor landing. She says she looked down over the banister but saw nothing unusual. The hall was dark.

A scrap of blue wool, matching her cardigan, was found snagged on the banister rail at the half-landing. The half-landing is where the bust's empty plinth stands. Price says she caught her sleeve on a loose nail there "several days ago." The nail is present. The wool could have been there for some time.

She has nursing knowledge of anatomy. She knows where to strike a man to do harm. She had motive. But her alibi places her on the first floor throughout the relevant window, and I have no witness placing her on the ground floor after 21:00. A strong suspect on paper. Less convincing in person. She is the sort of woman who would weather a pension loss with the same composure she brings to everything else.

Mrs Dorothy Frome

The cook. Widow. Has worked at the house for eleven years. Found the body.

She brought Major Ashwell a cup of cocoa at 21:30. This was her nightly routine. She says she then tidied the kitchen, locked the back door at a quarter to ten, and walked to her cottage at the edge of the grounds. Did not return until seven the next morning.

Mrs Frome was visibly distressed when I spoke to her. She has worked for the Major since before the war. She described him as a good man, strict but fair. Her husband, Albert, was the estate gardener until he died in 1942. She spoke of him, and the roses, and the cottage, and her voice went quiet in the way that people's voices go quiet when they are talking about a life that has shrunk around them.

She volunteered that the bust of Augustus had always been unstable. She said the Major had only moved it from storage to the entrance hall that afternoon, preparing for the derequisition, and she thought it was "asking for trouble." She said the plinth on the half-landing was "never meant for something that heavy."

Mrs Frome appears to have no motive. She spoke of Ashwell with genuine affection. Her alibi places her in her cottage from 21:45 onwards. She was the last known person to see Ashwell alive, but that is unremarkable given her role. I cannot think why she would want to harm the man who kept her on when the War Office would have replaced her.

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Priorities

1. Press Vickers on the chess game timing. Why does his account differ from Boyle's by a full hour? A man who shouts his opinions across an entrance hall does not usually lie about chess.
2. Account for Vickers's walking stick at the newel post. If he went directly upstairs, why is the stick at the bottom?
3. Investigate Sister Price's movements after 22:00. Confirm the wool fibre timeline.
4. Await the full forensic examination of the bust. Where exactly is the blood? Which surface made contact?
5. Look into the household finances. Check the stores ledger and ration books. Pugh mentioned that the village grocer, Parfitt, has been seen at the kitchen door more often than a greengrocer has reason to visit.

Captain Vickers has the motive, the unaccounted time, the physical capability, and his stick was found at the scene. He is where I intend to concentrate. Though I will admit, privately, that the men who make the most noise are not always the ones you end up charging.

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W.H. Briggs, Detective Sergeant Wiltshire County Constabulary 14th January 1946

Police Examination of the Scene

Case: Death of Major C.W. Ashwell, MC, Hartley Grange, Hartley St Martin, Wiltshire Date of Examination: 13th January 1946 Examining Officer: Detective Sergeant W.H. Briggs, Wiltshire County Constabulary Assisting: Constable E.R. Pugh, Hartley St Martin

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The Entrance Hall

A stone-flagged hall running the full width of the house, approximately thirty feet east to west by twelve feet deep. The main staircase rises from the centre of the hall to a half-landing, turns, and continues to the first floor. The half-landing is approximately eight feet above the hall floor. The staircase is of oak, with a turned banister rail on the open side overlooking the hall.

The body: Major Ashwell was found lying face down on the flagstones at the foot of the staircase. His head was oriented toward the front door, his feet toward the staircase. A large quantity of blood had pooled beneath the right side of the head, partly dried and darkened. The body was cold and rigid. The clothing was undisturbed. Carpet slippers still on both feet.

The marble bust: A marble bust, approximately twenty-two inches tall and weighing an estimated three stone, lay on its side on the flagstones approximately eighteen inches from the victim's right shoulder. The bust depicts the Roman emperor Augustus, wearing a laurel wreath. It belongs to the house and had been moved from storage by Major Ashwell earlier that day.

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Examination of the Bust

The bust shows two areas of fresh damage.

Chip on the base: A triangular chip, approximately one inch across, has broken from the flat base of the bust. A corresponding scratch and impact mark are visible on the flagstone beneath where the bust was found. This damage is consistent with the bust being dropped onto the stone floor from a height.

Chip on the right brow ridge: A shallow crescentic chip on the brow ridge of the figure's right eye. Traces of blood and a single grey-white hair are embedded in this chip. The blood has been confirmed as human. The hair is consistent in colour and texture with the victim's.

The blood and hair are on the brow ridge of the bust, not on the base. If the bust had fallen base-first from the half-landing plinth and struck the victim on the way down, the blood and impact evidence would be on the base or the underside. Instead, the striking surface was the protruding facial features of the bust, the brow and nose, which would face forward if the bust were held upright by a person and swung at the victim.

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The Half-Landing Plinth

A stone shelf, approximately ten inches deep by fourteen inches wide, is built into the wall of the half-landing at waist height. It is one of a pair. The left plinth holds a bust of Cicero, which has been in place for some years. The right plinth was empty on the morning of the 13th.

The plinth is level, tested with a spirit level. Its surface has a shallow lip, approximately half an inch high, along the front edge. An object placed on the plinth sits within this lip. In testing, the Cicero bust was nudged, pushed, and the landing floorboards were stamped upon. The bust did not shift. The lip prevents any object from sliding off the front of the plinth. An object would need to be lifted clear of the lip to fall.

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Captain Vickers's Walking Stick

A standard-issue hospital walking stick, rubber-tipped, was found propped against the newel post at the foot of the main staircase on the morning of the 13th. Captain Vickers identifies it as his. He states he took it upstairs with him when he retired. No other person admits to moving the stick.

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Blue Wool Fibre

A scrap of blue knitted wool, approximately one inch in length, was found snagged on the banister rail of the half-landing, at the point where the handrail meets the newel post. The wool is consistent with the blue cardigan habitually worn by Sister Price. She states she caught her sleeve on a loose nail at that point several days before the murder, on Wednesday or Thursday. A nail head protruding approximately one-eighth of an inch from the rail was observed at the location of the snag.

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The Console Table

A mahogany console table stands against the east wall of the entrance hall, approximately six feet from the foot of the staircase and ten feet from where the body was found. Mrs Frome states that Major Ashwell placed the bust on this table during the afternoon of the 12th, having brought it from the storage cupboard under the stairs. The surface of the table shows a circular dust-free mark consistent with the base of the bust having rested there recently.

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The Service Corridor

A narrow unlit passage, approximately three feet wide and thirty feet long, connecting the kitchen at the rear of the house to the entrance hall. The corridor passes behind the morning room. It has two doors: one opening into the kitchen, one opening into the entrance hall near the study door.

A smear of white powder was observed on the left wall of the corridor, at waist height, approximately three feet from the entrance hall doorway. The powder was collected and examined. It is calcium carbonate with traces of crystalline calcite, consistent with dust from a marble surface. The smear is approximately four inches long and appears to have been left by an object brushing against the wall in passing.

The service corridor is used primarily by Mrs Frome to move between the kitchen and the front rooms of the house.

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The Study

The study door, off the entrance hall, was closed but not locked. Inside, a half-drunk cup of cocoa stood on the side table beside the leather armchair. A book lay open on the armchair cushion. A pair of tortoiseshell reading spectacles was on the side table, beside the cocoa cup, folded closed. The gas fire was burning. The room was warm.

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Summary

1. The victim died from a single blow to the right temple. The wound trajectory is upward and horizontal, inconsistent with a falling object.
2. Blood and hair are embedded in the brow ridge of the bust, not the base. The bust was held face-forward and swung, not dropped.
3. The base chip and the impact mark on the flagstones indicate the bust was dropped onto the floor as staging, after the attack.
4. The half-landing plinth is stable, level, and has a raised lip. The bust could not topple without being lifted clear.
5. A marble dust smear on the service corridor wall suggests the bust was carried through that passage.
6. Captain Vickers's walking stick was found at the newel post. He claims he took it upstairs.
7. A blue wool fibre on the half-landing banister is consistent with Sister Price's cardigan. She claims it was snagged several days before the murder.
8. The victim's reading spectacles were in the study, on the side table beside the cocoa cup. They were not on the body.

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W.H. Briggs, Detective Sergeant Wiltshire County Constabulary 14th January 1946

Statement of Mrs Dorothy Frome

Taken at Hartley Grange on the 13th day of January 1946 by Detective Sergeant W.H. Briggs, Wiltshire County Constabulary.

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I'm sorry. Give me a moment. I keep seeing him lying there on those cold stones.

I've worked at Hartley Grange since 1935. Eleven years this spring. The Major and Mrs Ashwell took me on as cook when old Mrs Prewett retired. My Albert was already here then, doing the gardens. We had the cottage at the bottom of the garden path, Albert and me. He kept the gardens beautiful. You should have seen the roses in June. Three beds of them along the south wall, and the honeysuckle over the cottage door. People used to stop on the lane to look.

Albert died in the autumn of forty-two. His heart. The doctor said it was sudden. He was out by the greenhouse and I found him sitting on the bench with the trowel still in his hand. The Major was very kind to me after that. Kept me on. Let me stay in the cottage. He didn't have to do that. The War Office wanted to bring in a NAAFI cook when the house was requisitioned, but the Major insisted I stay. He said I knew the house better than anyone and he was right about that.

On Saturday evening I prepared supper as usual. Shepherd's pie for the officers, with tinned carrots and mashed potato. Not my best, but you do what you can with what you're given. The Major had his on a tray in the study. He ate in there most evenings. He was working on the estate papers, getting things ready for when the house comes back to him in March. Piles of documents everywhere. He was worried about the condition of the place, what the Army had done to the woodwork and the plaster.

During the afternoon he'd been moving things out of storage. He brought the marble bust of Augustus out from the cupboard under the stairs and set it on the console table in the entrance hall. Three stone of marble, that thing. I told him he'd do himself an injury. He said the house needed to look like a home again, not a barracks.

At half past nine I made his cocoa. Bournville, with milk and half a spoonful of sugar. I carried it through to the study. He was in his chair by the fire, reading. He had his spectacles on, the tortoiseshell pair, perched on the end of his nose. I set the cup on the side table. He said, "Thank you, Dorothy." Those were the last words he spoke to me.

I went back to the kitchen, washed up the last of the supper things, wiped down the table, and locked the kitchen door behind me at a quarter to ten. I walked down the garden path to my cottage. It was cold. Clear sky. Stars. I could see my breath. I locked my door, put the kettle on, and listened to the wireless for a bit. There was a concert programme. Elgar, I think, or it may have been Vaughan Williams. I was in bed by half past ten.

In the morning I came back to the house at seven. Unlocked the kitchen door. Put the kettle on for the officers' tea. I went through to the morning room to lay the fire and I saw him. He was lying at the foot of the stairs with the bust beside him, and his reading spectacles were still in his top pocket. That marble face staring up at the ceiling and the Major on the flagstones. Blood. A terrible amount of blood, dark on the stone.

I think I called out. I don't remember. Then I went for Sister Price.

I should say this: that bust was always a worry. Heavy as lead. And the Major had only brought it out that afternoon. The plinth on the half-landing was never meant for something that weight. It's just a stone shelf built into the wall, no lip to speak of, no railing. The floorboards on the landing creak and shift when anyone walks over them. I'd said to the Major more than once that the old busts ought to stay in storage until the house was properly set right.

I don't know what happened, Sergeant. Perhaps it slid off. Perhaps someone bumped it in the dark on their way upstairs. These things happen in old houses. The floors aren't level. Nothing sits straight.

The Major was a good man. Strict, yes, but fair. He kept this house going through the war when most people would have walked away from it. I can't imagine who would want to hurt him.

I'm sorry. I can't say any more just now.

Statement of Sister Margaret Price, QAIMNS

Taken at Hartley Grange on the 13th day of January 1946 by Detective Sergeant W.H. Briggs, Wiltshire County Constabulary.

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I shall try to be as precise as I can, Sergeant. We are trained to observe and to record. It is a professional habit. I find it difficult to switch off, though I gather that is rather the point of it.

I have been stationed at Hartley Grange since March 1944, assigned by the War Office as one of two nursing sisters for the convalescent officers. Sister Gill and I share the duties between us. The matron, Miss Halliday, oversees the medical side, but in practice the sisters do the daily work. The dressings, the medications, the morale. Especially the morale. These men have been through things I cannot begin to describe, and some of them are not getting better. You learn to notice the ones who stare at the wall for too long.

My relationship with Major Ashwell was professional. He was the owner of the house and took an interest in how it was run, which sometimes put him at odds with the medical staff. He had opinions about the officers' routines, their meals, their behaviour. We disagreed from time to time, as one does.

On Saturday evening, the 12th of January, I went to the nurses' sitting room at approximately nine o'clock. Sister Gill was already there, darning stockings. I sat at the writing desk and began my letters. I write to my sister in Cheltenham on Saturday evenings. It is my habit. She writes back on Tuesdays. We have maintained this arrangement since 1941 and neither of us has missed a week yet, which I suspect is more than most marriages can claim.

Gill went to bed at ten. Shortly after she left, I remembered that Lieutenant Crosby had been feverish during the afternoon. I stepped out to check on him. His room is on the first floor, three doors along the corridor from the sitting room. I was on the landing for a moment and I looked down over the banister into the entrance hall below. The hall was dark. The lights had been turned off. I could see the shape of the staircase and the flagstones at the bottom but nothing else. Nothing out of the ordinary. No sound.

I looked in on Crosby. He was asleep. His temperature seemed normal. I returned to the sitting room and continued with my correspondence. I retired to my own room at approximately eleven o'clock.

I did not go downstairs at any point during the evening. I was not in the entrance hall. I was on the first floor from nine o'clock until I went to bed.

You have asked me about the wool fibre. Yes, I wear a blue cardigan most evenings. The banister on the half-landing has a loose nail head that sticks out at an angle. I caught my sleeve on it several days ago, on Wednesday or Thursday, and it pulled a thread from the cuff. I noticed it at the time and meant to push the nail flat with a shoe but forgot. That scrap of wool has been there since midweek. It has nothing to do with Saturday night.

I would rather not discuss my personal affairs, but since you have raised the matter, I will say this: Major Ashwell spoke to me on the morning of the 11th about a private matter. He expressed displeasure. I took his words seriously. But I had no reason to wish him harm. These things can be managed. Transfers happen. One adjusts. It is not the first difficulty of my career, Sergeant, and I have not solved any of the previous ones through violence.

I have nothing further to add. If you need me to clarify the timings, I am happy to go through them again.

Statement of Captain Leonard Vickers, RE

Taken at Hartley Grange on the 13th day of January 1946 by Detective Sergeant W.H. Briggs, Wiltshire County Constabulary.

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Right. You want to know about the argument. Everyone wants to know about the argument. So I'll tell you straight.

I wrote a letter to the War Office. A formal complaint. About the food, which was barely fit for a dog. About the cold, which was perishing. About the fact that eight men recovering from wounds received in the service of their country were living in a house with no hot water three days out of five and coal fires that went out by nine in the evening because the ration didn't stretch. I'd been at Hartley Grange for four months and I'd seen men go backwards. Fellows who came in walking went out in worse shape than they arrived, and not because of their wounds. Hargreaves lost half a stone in November. Boyle's hands shake worse now than they did in September. That's not convalescence. That's neglect.

I put all that in my letter. Named the house. Named Ashwell. Sent it to the War Office on the 8th of January.

Ashwell got hold of it somehow. Intercepted it, I think. He came at me in the entrance hall on the 11th, waving the thing. Called me an ungrateful whelp. Told me I had no idea what it cost to run a house like this on a War Office pittance. Said he'd have me transferred to a military hospital where I could "enjoy the company of men who didn't complain."

I told him what I thought. I'm not going to apologise for that. He was running the place like a workhouse and somebody needed to say so. Price and Gill were there. They heard the lot.

But I didn't kill him, Sergeant. I didn't like the man. I thought he was a bully and a skinflint. That doesn't mean I crept downstairs in the dark and bashed his head in. I'm a sapper, not a thug.

On Saturday evening I played chess with Boyle in the common room. We finished at about half past ten, I think. Boyle's a careful player. Likes to think for an age over every move. The sort of man who treats a bishop's diagonal as though it were a moral decision. I'm not certain of the exact time. There's no clock in the common room and I don't wear a watch. After the game I went straight upstairs to my room. Read for a bit and turned out the light.

I heard nothing unusual from the staircase or the hall. The house is solidly built. Thick walls, thick floors. You don't hear much between storeys.

The bust of Augustus. Yes, I'd noticed it. Ashwell moved it from that cupboard under the stairs on Saturday afternoon. He was getting the house ready for when the War Office hands it back. Putting things back where they belonged, he said. I saw him carrying it across the hall. Three stone of marble, at his age. I told him it was a hazard, perched up there on that narrow shelf. I'd said as much. Those plinths on the half-landing were never meant for something that heavy. The plaster behind them is cracked. You can see it. I'm an engineer. I notice these things.

But noticing that something is dangerous and pushing it onto a man's head are rather different propositions, wouldn't you say?

My walking stick. You've asked about that. I usually take it with me everywhere. If it was at the bottom of the stairs on Sunday morning, I must have left it in the common room after the chess game and someone moved it. Or I set it down without thinking when I went up to bed. I honestly cannot recall. It's the sort of thing one does on a bad leg. You prop the stick against whatever's nearest and forget about it. I've left the blasted thing in the lavatory, the dining room, the garden. Boyle found it in the boot room last week and brought it back without a word. He's used to it.

I had nothing to do with Ashwell's death. The man was a tyrant, but he was an old tyrant, and old tyrants tend to die of their own stubbornness sooner or later.

That's all I have to say.