Inspector Tanner was an early bird. Though on the next morning he did not attempt to emulate his performance of the day before, half-past eight o’clock saw him cycling out to the Luce Manor boathouse to undertake the examination which had been postponed from the previous evening. Leaving his bicycle among the shrubs at the entrance gate, he walked down the path which ran along the river bank, and which he had not yet examined. But here he found nothing of interest.
The boathouse was a modern structure in the Old English style, with brick sides, half-timbered gables, and a red tiled roof. The door was in the wall opposite the river, and the Inspector unlocked it, and entered a chamber of about thirty feet square, lighted from a louvre in the roof. The water basin occupied about half the fl
