ugh.

"Now, Mrs. Arthur, and you, Mr. Phar," he stated at once as we entered
the drawing-room together, "I've brought Mr. Hunt in here to read you
his guess at what happened last evenin'. Doctor Askew'll be with us in a
minute, and _he's_ got somethin' to lay before you.... No; Miss Blake's
not come round yet. The doc'll explain about her. But we'll hear from
Mr. Hunt first, see? I've examined him and I'm satisfied he's straight.
You've known him long enough to form your own opinions, but that's mine.
Oh, here's the doc! Go on, Mr. Hunt."

With this lead, I was at length able to persuade Lucette and Maltby to
listen, sullenly enough, to my written analysis. My feeling toward them
both, though better concealed, was quite as hostile as theirs toward me,
but I saw that I caught their reluctant attention and that Maltby was
somewhat impressed by what I had written, and by my interjected
amplifications of the more salient points. I had been careful to
introduce no facts not given me by Sergeant Conlon, and when I had
finished, ignoring Lucette's instant murmur of impatience and
incredulity, I turned to him and said: "Sergeant, is there anything
known to you and not known to me--any one detail discovered during your
examination of Mrs. Hunt's boudoir, say--which makes my deductions
impossible or absurd?"

He reflected a moment, then acknowledged: "Well, no, Mr. Hunt. Things
might 'a' happened like that; maybe they did. But just sayin' so don't
prove they did!"

"May I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure."

"Had Mrs. Hunt's body been moved when you arrived? I mean, from the very
spot where it fell?"

"It had and it hadn't. The doc here found her lyin' face down on the
floor, right in front of the couch. He had to roll her over on her back
to examine her. That's all. The body's there now like that, covered with
a sheet. Nothin' else has been disturbed."

"The body was lying face down, you say?"

"Yes," struck in Doctor Askew; "it was."

"At full length?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that rather surprising?"

"Unquestionably."

"How do you account for the position?"

"There's only one possible explanation," replied Doctor Askew, as if
giving expert testimony from a witness box; "a sudden and complete loss
of balance, pitching the body sharply forward, accompanied by such a
binding of the legs and feet as to prevent any instinctive movement
toward recovery."

"Thank you. Were there any indications of such binding?"

"Yes