I set down the book as I had found it, stepped forth again into the
sunshine. The scouring of the step had left a moist puddle below it,
where the ground, no doubt, had been dry and hard on the evening of
the murder. At the edge of this puddle the turf twinkled with clean
dew--close, well-trimmed turf sloping gently to the stream which
formed the real boundary of the garden; but Miss Belcher, the
neighbouring land-owner, a person of great wealth and the most
eccentric good-nature, had allowed my father to build a wall on the
far side, for privacy, and had granted him an entrance through it to
her park--a narrow wooden door to which a miniature bridge gave
access across the stream.

There were thus three ways of approaching the summer-house; (1) by
the path which wound through the garden from the house, (2) across
the turf from the side-gate, which opened out of a lane, or
woodcutters' road, running at right angles from the turnpike and
alongside the garden fence towards the park; and (3) from the park
itself, across the little bridge. From the bridge a straight line to
the summer-house would lie behind the angle of sight of any one
seated within; so that a visitor, stepping with caution, might
present himself at the doorway without any warning.

You may say that, my father being blind, it need not have entered
into my calculations whether his assailant had approached in full
view of the doorway or from the rear. But the assailant--let us
suppose for a moment--was some one ignorant of my father's blindness.
This granted, as it was at least possible, he would be likeliest to
steal upon the summer-house from the rear. I cannot say more than
that, standing there by the doorway, I felt the approach from the
streamside to be most dangerous, and therefore the likeliest.