Sergeant Hemingway left Greystones in a thoughtful mood. An exhaustive search had failed to discover the hiding-place of any weapon, but one fact had emerged with which he seemed to be rather pleased.
"Though why I should be I can't tell you," he said to Glass. "It makes the whole business look more screwy than ever. But in my experience that's very often the way. You start on a case which looks as though it's going to be child's play, and you don't seem to get any further with it. By the time you've been at work on it a couple of days you've collected enough evidence to prove that there couldn't have been a murder at all. Then something breaks, and there you are."
"Do you say that the more difficult a case becomes the easier it is to solve?" asked Glass painstakingly.
"That's about the size of it," admitted the Sergeant. "When it's got so gummed up that each new fact you pick up contradicts the last I begin to feel cheerful."
"I do not understand. I see around me only folly and sin and vanity. Shall these things make a righteous man glad?"
"Not being a righteous man, I can't say. Speaking as a humble flatfoot, if it weren't for folly and sin and vanity I wouldn't be where I am now, and nor would you, my lad. And if you'd stop wasting your time learning bits of the Bible to fire off at me - which in itself is highly insubordinate conduct, let me tell you - and take a bit of wholesome interest in this problem, you'd probably do yourself a lot of good. You might even get promoted."
"I set no store by worldly honours," said Glass gloomily. "Man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish."
"What you do want," declared the Sergeant with asperity, "is a course of Bile Beans! I've met some killjoys in my time, but you fairly take the cake. What did you get out of your friend the butler?"
"He knows nothing."
"Don't you believe it! Butlers always know something."
"It is not so. He knows only that harsh words passed between the dead man and his nephew on the evening of the murder."
"Young Neville explained that," said the Sergeant musingly. "Not that I set much store by what he says. Pack of lies, I daresay."
"A lying tongue is but for the moment," observed Glass, with melancholy satisfaction.
"You can't have been about the world much if that's what you think. Do you still hold to it that the man you saw on the night of the murder wasn't carrying anything?"
"You would have me change my evidence," said Glass, fixing him with an accusing glare, "but I tell you that a man that beareth false witness is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow!"
"No one wants you to bear false witness," said the Sergeant irritably. "And as far as I'm concerned, you're a sharp arrow already, and probably a maul as well, if a maul means what I think it does. I've had to tell you off once already for giving me lip, and I've had about enough of it. Wait a bit!" He stopped short in the middle of the pavement and pulled out his notebook, and hastily thumbed over the leaves. "You wait!" he said darkly. "I've got something here that I copied out specially. I knew it would come in useful. Yes, here we are! He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed." He looked up to see how this counter-blast was being received, and added with profound satisfaction: "And that without remedy!"
Glass compressed his lips, but said after a moment's inward struggle: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. I will declare my iniquity, I will be sorry for my sin."
"All right," said the Sergeant, returning his notebook to his pocket. "We'll carry on from there."
A heavy sigh broke from Glass. "Mine iniquities have gone over my head; as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me," he said in a brooding tone.
"There's no need to take on about it," said the Sergeant, mollified. "It's just got to be a bad habit with you, which you ought to break yourself of. I'm sorry if I told you off a bit roughly. Forget it!"
"Open rebuke," said Glass with unabated gloom, "is better than secret love."
The Sergeant fought for words. As he could think of none that were not profane, and felt morally certain that Glass would, without hesitation, condemn those with Biblical aphorisms, he controlled himself, and strode on in fulminating silence.
Glass walked beside him, apparently unaware of having said anything to enrage him. As they turned into the road where the police station was situated, he said: "You found no weapon. I told you you would not."
"You're right," said the Sergeant. "I found no weapon, but I found out something you'd have found out two days ago if you'd had the brains of a louse."
"He that refraineth his lips is wise," remarked Glass. "What did I overlook?"
"Well, I don't know that it was any business of yours, strictly speaking," said the Sergeant, always fair-minded. "But the grandfather clock in the hall is a minute slow by the one in the late Ernest's study, which synchronised with your watch. What's more, I found out from Miss Fletcher that it's been like that for some time."
"Is it important to the case?" asked Glass.
"Of course it's important. I don't say it makes it any easier, because it doesn't, but that's what I told you: in cases like this you're always coming up against new bits of evidence which go and upset any theory you may have been working on. On the face of it, it looks as though the man you saw - we'll assume it was Carpenter - did the murder, doesn't it?"
"That is so," agreed Glass.
"Well, the fact of that hall clock's being a minute slow throws a spanner in the works," said the Sergeant. "In the second act of her highly talented performance, Mrs. North stated that that clock struck the hour, which was 10 p.m., while she was in the hall, on her way to the front door. You saw Carpenter making his getaway at 10.02. That gave him a couple of minutes in which to have killed the late Ernie, disposed of the weapon, and reached the gate. It's my opinion it couldn't have been done, but at least there was an outside chance. Now I discover that when Mrs. North left the study it wasn't 10.00, but 10.01, and that's properly upset things. It begins to look as though Carpenter wasn't in on the murder at all, but simply went down to try his luck at putting the black on the late Ernie, and was shown off the premises as described by Mrs. North. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Carpenter turns out to be one of those highly irrelevant things that seem to crop up just to make life harder. The real murderer must have been hiding in the garden, waiting for his opportunity, and while you were taking notice of Carpenter, and deciding to go and investigate, he was doing the job." ~
Glass considered this for a moment. "It is possible, but how did he make his escape? I saw no one in the garden."
"I daresay you didn't see anyone, but you didn't go looking behind every bush, did you? You flashed your torch round, and thought there was no one in the garden. There might have been, and what was to stop him making his getaway while you were in the study?"
They had reached the police station by this time. Glass paused on the steps, and said slowly: "It does not seem to me that it can have happened like that. I do not say it was impossible, but you would have me believe that between 10.01, when Mrs. North left the house, and 10.05, when I discovered the body, a man had time to come forth from his hiding-place, enter the study, slay Ernest Fletcher, and return to his hiding-place. It is true that I myself did not enter the study until 10.05, but as I came up the path must I not have seen a man escaping thence?"
"You know, when you keep your mind on the job you're not so dumb," said the Sergeant encouragingly. "All the same, I've got an answer to that one. Who says the murderer escaped by way of the side gate? What was to stop him letting himself out the same way Mrs. North did - by the front door?"
Glass looked incredulous. "He must be a madman who would do so! Would he run the risk of being seen by a member of the household, perhaps by Mrs. North, who had only a minute or two before passed through the study door into the hall, as he must have known, had he been lying in wait as you suggest?"
"Heard you coming up the path, and had to take a chance," said the Sergeant.
"Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom!" said Glass scornfully.
"Well, for all you know he was destitute of wisdom," replied the Sergeant. "You go and get your dinner, and report here when you've had it."
He went up the steps, and into the building. It was not until he had passed out of Glass's sight that it occurred to him that the constable's last remark might not have been directed at the unknown murderer. A wrathful exclamation rose to his lips; he half turned, as though to go after Glass; but thought better of it. Encountering the Station Sergeant's eye, he said: "Somebody here must have had a grudge against me when they saddled me with that pain in the neck."
"Glass?" inquired Sergeant Cross sympathetically. "Chronic, isn't he? Mind you, he isn't usually as bad as he's been over this case. Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it? His sort has to have a bit of sin in front of them to get properly wound up, as you might say. Do you want him taken off?"
"Oh no!" said the Sergeant, with bitter irony. "I like being told-off by constables. Makes a nice change."
"We'll take him off the job," offered Cross. "He's not used to murder-cases, that's what it is. It's gone to his head."
The Sergeant relented. "No, I'll put up with him. At least he's a conscientious chap, and apart from this nasty habit he's got of reciting Scripture I haven't anything against him. I daresay he's got a fixation, poor fellow."
An hour later, mellowed by food, he was propounding this theory to Superintendent Hannasyde, who arrived at the police station just as his subordinate came back from a leisurely dinner.
"You never know," he said. "We shall quite likely find that he had some shocking experience when he was a child, which would account for it."
"As I have no intention of wasting my time - or letting you waste yours - in probing into Glass's past, I should think there is nothing more unlikely," replied Hannasyde somewhat shortly.
The Sergeant cast him a shrewd glance, and said: "I told you this wasn't going to be such a whale of a case, Chief. Said so at the start. Bad morning?"
"No, merely inconclusive. Budd had been doublecrossing Fletcher; Neville Fletcher seems to be up to his eyes in debt; and North did not spend the evening of the 17th at his flat."
"Well, isn't that nice?" said the Sergeant. "Stage all littered up with suspects, just like I said it would be! Tell me more about friend Budd."
Hannasyde gave him a brief account of the broker's exploits. The Sergeant scratched his chin, remarking at the end of the tale: "I don't like it. Not a bit. You can say, of course, that if he had to hand over nine thousand shares which he hadn't got, and couldn't get without pretty well ruining himself, he had a motive for murdering the late Ernest. On the other hand, what he said to you about Ernest's not being able to come out into the open to prosecute him rings very true. Very true indeed. He's not my fancy at all. What about North?"
"North, unless I'm much mistaken, is playing a deep game. He told me that after dinner at his club he returned to his flat, and went early to bed. What actually happened was that he returned to his flat shortly after 8.30 p.m., and went out again just before 9.00. He came back finally at 11.45."
"Well, well, well!" said the Sergeant. "No deception? All quite open and above-board?"
"Apparently. He paused to exchange a word with the hall porter on his way in at 8.30; when he went out the porter offered to call a taxi, and he refused, saying he would walk."
"Who saw him come in later, Chief?"
"The night porter. He says that he caught sight of North stepping into the lift."
"Well, for a man who impressed you as having a head on his shoulders he doesn't seem to me to be doing so very well," said the Sergeant. "What was the use of his telling you he'd spent the evening at his flat when he must have known you could bust the story wide open at the first blow?"
"I don't know," Hannasyde replied. "Had it been Budd, I should have thought that he had got into a panic, and lost his head. But North wasn't in a panic, and I'm quite sure he didn't lose his head. What I do suspect is that for some reason, best known to himself, he was stalling me."
The Sergeant thought it over. "Stalling you till he could have a word with his wife. I get it. I'd call it a risky game to play, myself."
"I don't know that I think that would worry him much."
"Oh, that sort, is he?" said the Sergeant. "A little course of Ichabod wouldn't do him any harm, by the sound of it."
Hannasyde smiled, but rather absently. "He wasn't at his office this morning, and as his secretary didn't seem to think he was going there today, I came down to see him here. But he's going to be difficult, just because he doesn't say a word more than he need."
"So is young Neville going to be difficult," said the Sergeant. "But not, believe me, for the same reason. That bird talks so much you have a job to keep up with him. What do you make of him having the nerve to tell me he climbed out of his bedroom window, and over the garden wall, the night the late Ernest was murdered, just to go and tell Mrs. North all about it? Said he was her accomplice over the business of those IOUs of hers."
Hannasyde frowned. "Cool hand. It might be true."
"Cool! I believe you! Brass isn't the word for what he's got. However, I'm bound to admit I've got a soft corner for him. He laid old Ichabod out with the neatest right counter you ever saw."
"What?"
"Figure of speech," explained the Sergeant. "He landed a Biblical text which Ichabod wasn't expecting, and which pretty well crumpled him up. But that's nothing to go on. I wouldn't put it above him to bump his uncle off, if it happened to suit his book. Though, now I come to think of it," he added reflectively, "it would be more in his line to have stuck a knife in his ribs. No; if it weren't for the fact that there's no trace of the weapon, and not one hiding-place that I could spot, I wouldn't fancy him at all for the role of murderer. Which brings me to the only bit of useful evidence I picked up. The hall clock is a minute slow, Chief."
Hannasyde looked at him. "If that is so," he said slowly, "it makes Mrs. North's evidence practically valueless."
"The second batch, you mean? It does look like it, doesn't it? Not that I ever set much store by it myself, from what you told me of her. Mind you, I don't say the murder couldn't still have happened but what I do say is that the man Glass saw - call him Charlie Carpenter - couldn't have done it. It must have been Budd, which I don't think, young Neville, North, or the dizzy blonde herself."
Hannasyde shook his head. "I can't swallow that, Hemingway. If we are to assume that Mrs. North's evidence was true, it means that Fletcher did not re-enter the study until 10.01. You yourself put the time it would take him to sit down at his desk again and start to write his letters at two minutes at the least. That leaves two minutes for the murderer to walk in, kill him, and get away again. Less, for though Glass didn't actually enter the study until 10.05, he must have had the window in view for quite a minute, on his way up the path."
"Yes, that's what he said," replied the Sergeant. "I admit it would be cutting it a bit fine. What's your idea, Chief? Think Mrs. North's first story was the true one?"
"No," said Hannasyde, after a pause. "I think she did go back into the study. If she didn't let herself out of it as she described, I don't see how her finger-prints came to be on the panel. But the fact of the hall clock's being slow points to a discrepancy somewhere in her story. She stated that the man X left the study with Ernest at 9.58, that she went back into it, and left it as the hall clock struck 10.00. Now, the only times we know to be correct are 10.02, when Glass saw X making off; and 10.05, when he discovered Fletcher's body. That left us with a difference of four minutes, between the time Mrs. North said X left and the time Glass actually saw him leave. We could just, and only just, account for that by assuming that X doubled back to the study, murdered Fletcher, and again made off. But if Fletcher returned to the study not at 10.00, but at 10.01, then there is no possibility of X's having returned, committed the murder, and reached the gate again. So either X left by the side gate at 9.58, to be followed in four minutes by a second man - Y, if you like; or the first man, X, was a pure fabrication of Mrs. North's."
"Hold on, Super! I'll have to see it on paper," said the Sergeant. He wrote for a moment or two, and regarded the result with disgust. "Yes, that is a hopeful-looking mess," he remarked. "All right - X is out. So what? We know the North dame hid in the garden, because we found her footprints. Yes, I get it. Y, who is obviously North, was with the late Ernest; she recognised his voice - or maybe she didn't: I haven't worked that bit out. Anyway, Y killed Ernest while Mrs. North was in the garden, and bunked. Mrs. North then entered the study to have a look-see, and - for reasons which I won't attempt to fathom - made off by way of the front door. You can make the times fit if you juggle with them. Someone may have passed down Maple Grove when Y reached the gate, which would mean that he'd have to wait till whoever it was had cleared off before making his getaway. Or, if you prefer it, Mrs. North didn't leave at 10.01, but later. Though why she should make that bit up, I don't quite see. That eliminates X, and fits the only facts we know to be certain."
"You can eliminate X if you like," interposed Hannasyde, "but you can't eliminate Charlie Carpenter. Where does he fit into this otherwise plausible story?"
The Sergeant sighed. "That's true. If we've got to have him in, then he's Y, and North is X - eliminated. Yes, that's all right. Mrs. North didn't recognise his voice, but she caught a glimpse of him, and thought he might be her husband. Hence her erroneous evidence. How's that?"
"Not bad," conceded Hannasyde. "But if North is eliminated, will you tell me why he stated that he spent the evening in his flat, when in actual fact he did nothing of the kind?"
"I give it up," said the Sergeant despairingly. "There isn't an answer."
Hannasyde smiled. "There might be. It's just possible that North had nothing to do with the murder, but suspects that his wife had."
The Sergeant stared at him. "What, and deliberately chucked his own alibi - if any - overboard, so as to be all set to leap in and take the rap for his wife? Go on, Super! You don't believe that!"
"I don't know. He might. Rather that type of man."
"Regular film star, he sounds to me," said the Sergeant, revolted. "Red blood, and hair on his chest, too, I should think." He turned his head, as the door opened, and encountered the solemn stare of PC Glass. "Oh, so you're back, are you? Well, if you're working on this case, I suppose you'd better come in. I daresay I'll be able to think up a job for you."
Hannasyde nodded. "Yes, come in, Glass. I want you to cast your mind back to the night of the murder. When you were walking along Vale Avenue, on your beat, do you remember seeing anyone, beyond the man who came out of the side gate of Greystones? Anyone who might, at about 10.00 p.m., have been passing the front entrance to Greystones?"
Glass thought deeply for a moment, and then pronounced: "No, I remember no one. Why am I asked this question?"
"Because I have reason to doubt the truth of Mrs. North's statement, that she left Greystones by the front door, at a minute after 10.00. What I want is a possible passer-by, who may or may not have seen her."
"If that is so, the matter is simple," said Glass. "There is a pillar-box at the corner of Vale Avenue and Glynne Road, where she dwells, which is cleared at 10.00 p.m. each night. I do not doubt that the postman saw her, if she was indeed upon her way home at that hour."
"Nice work, Ichabod!" exclaimed the Sergeant. "You'll end up in the CID yet."
A cold eye was turned upon him. "A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet," said Glass, adding, since the Sergeant seemed unimpressed: "Even the eyes of his child shall fail."
"Well, don't sound so cocky about it," said the Sergeant. "And as it happens I haven't got any children, so now where are you?"
"We won't discuss the matter," interposed Hannasyde in a chilling tone. "You will please remember, Glass, that you are talking to your superior officer."
"To have respect of persons is not good," said Glass seriously. "For, for a piece of bread that man will transgress."
"Oh, will he?" said the indignant Sergeant. "Well, he won't - not for fifty pieces of bread! What next!"
"That'll do," said Hannasyde, a tremor in his voice. "Get hold of that postman, Glass, and discover at what time he cleared the box, whether he saw Mrs. North, and if so, whether she was carrying anything. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, that's all. Report here to me."
Glass withdrew. As the door closed behind him,
Hannasyde said: "Why do you encourage him, Skipper?"
"Me? Me encourage him?"
"Yes, you."
The Sergeant said: "Well, if you call it encouraging him to tell him where he gets off-'
"I believe you enjoy him," said Hannasyde accusingly. The Sergeant grinned. "Well, I've got to admit it adds a bit of interest to the case, waiting for him to run dry. You'd think he must have got pretty well all he's learnt off his chest by now, wouldn't you? He hasn't, though. I certainly have to hand it to him: he hasn't repeated himself once so far. Where do we go from here?"
"To North's house," replied Hannasyde. "I must see if I can get out of him what he was doing on the night of the murder. You, I think, might put in a little good work in the servants' hall."
But when he arrived at the Chestnuts Hannasyde was met by the intelligence that North had left the house immediately after lunch. The butler was unable to state his master's destination, but did not think, since he was driving himself in his touring car, that he was bound for his City office.
After a moment's consideration, Hannasyde asked to have his card taken to Mrs. North. The butler accepted it, remarking repressively that he would see whether it were convenient for his mistress to receive him, and ushered him into the library.
Here he was presently joined by Miss Drew, who came in with her monocle screwed firmly into her eye, and a cigarette stuck into a long amber holder. "My sister's resting, but she'll be down in a moment," she informed him. "What do you want to see her about?"
"I'll tell her, when she comes," he replied politely.
She grinned. "All right: I can take a snub. But if it's about that epic story Neville Fletcher burbled into your Sergeant's ears, I can tell you now you're wasting your time. It leads nowhere."
"Epic story? Oh, you mean his adventures on the night of his uncle's death! No, I haven't come about that."
"I quite thought you might have. I shouldn't have been altogether surprised had you asked to see me."
"No? Are you concerned in those adventures?"
"Actually, I'm not, but Neville, who, you may have noticed, is rather reptilian, told the Sergeant, in his artless way, that I had plans for opening Ernie Fletcher's safe."
"And had you?"
"Well, yes and no," said Sally guardedly. "If I'd had my criminal notebook with me, and time to think it out, I believe I could have had a stab at it. But one very valuable thing this case has taught me is that in real life one just doesn't have time. Of course, if I'd been writing this story, I should have thought up a perfectly plausible reason for the fictitious me to have had the means at hand of concocting the stuff you call soup. I should have turned myself into a scientist's assistant, with the run of his laboratory, or something like that. However, I'm nothing of the sort, so that wasn't much good."
Hannasyde looked at her with a good deal of interest. "Mr. Fletcher's story was true, then, and not an attempt to keep the police amused?"
"You seem to have weighed him up pretty accurately," commented Sally. "But, as it happens, he really did come here to tell Helen (a) that his uncle had been murdered, and (b) that he hadn't managed to get hold of her IOUs. That, naturally, looked very bad to me. Of course, it was idiotic of my sister to co-opt Neville in the first place: she'd have done better to have put me on to it. You won't misunderstand me when I tell you that I was all for abstracting those IOUs from the safe before you could get your hands on them. Unfortunately, there was a policeman mounting guard over the study, which completely cramped my style."
"I quite see your point," said Hannasyde. "But if you've made a study of crime you must know that it would have been quite culpable of you to have abstracted anything at all from the murdered man's safe."
"Theoretically, yes; in practice, no," responded Sally coolly. "I knew that the IOUs had nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Naturally you can't be expected to know that, and just look at the trouble they're causing you! Not to mention the waste of time."
"I appreciate your point of view, Miss Drew, but, as you have already realised, I don't share it. It seems to me that the IOUs may have a very direct bearing on the case."
She gave a chuckle. "Yes, wouldn't you love me to pour my girlish confidences into your ears? It's all right: I'm going to. If you're toying with the notion that my sister may have been the murderess, I can put you right straight away. Setting aside the fairly evident fact that she simply hasn't got it in her to smash anyone's head in, there wasn't a trace of blood on her frock or her cloak when she came home that night. If you want me to believe that she could have done the deed, and not got one drop of blood on her, you'll have to hypnotise me. Of course, I don't expect you to pay much heed to what I say, because I'm bound to stand by my sister, but you can interrogate her personal maid, can't you? She'll tell you that none of my sister's clothes have disappeared, or have been sent to the cleaners' during the past week." She paused, extracted the end of her cigarette from the holder, and stubbed it out. "But, as I see it, you don't really think she did it. The man you suspect is my brother-in-law, and I'm sure I don't blame you. Only there again I may be able to help you. You can take it from me that he doesn't know of the existence of those IOUs. I've no doubt that sounds a trifle fatuous to you, but it happens to be true. And -just in case you haven't grasped this one - he doesn't suspect my sister of having had any what-you-might-call improper dealings with Ernest Fletcher." She stopped, and looked critically at him. "I'm not making a hit with you at all. Why not? Don't you believe me?"
"Yes, I believe you're telling me whatyou believe to be the truth," he answered. "But it is just possible that you don't know the whole truth. If - for the sake of argument - your brother-in-law is the man I'm looking for, it must be obvious to you that he wouldn't give anything away, even to you."
"That's perfectly true," conceded Sally fair-mindedly. "But there's one other point: my brother-in-law's no fool. If he'd done it, he'd have taken darned good care to have covered up his tracks." She frowned suddenly, and began to fit another cigarette into her holder. "Yes, I see there's a snag there. You think that he meant to, but that Helen's getting mixed up in it gummed up the works. You may be right, but if I were you I wouldn't bank on it."
At my job," said Hannasyde, "one learns not to bank on anything."
He turned, for the door had opened, and Helen had come into the room. She looked tired, and rather strained, but greeted him quite calmly. "Good-afternoon. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I was lying down."
"I'm sorry to be obliged to disturb you, Mrs. North," he replied, "but there are one or two points in your evidence which I want to go over with you again."
She moved to a chair by the fireplace. "Please sit down. I can't tell you anything more than I have, but, of course, I'll answer any questions you want to ask me."
He took a seat beside a table near her, and laid on it his notebook. "I am going to be perfectly frank with you, Mrs. North, for I think it will save a great deal of time and misunderstanding if you know what facts are in my possession. Now, the first thing I am going to tell you is that I have proof that a certain man, who need not concern you much, since it is in the highest degree unlikely that you have ever heard of him, visited Ernest Fletcher at some time during the evening on which he was murdered."
Her eyes were fixed upon his face with an expression in them of painful anxiety, but she merely said in a low voice: "No doubt he was the man I saw. Go on, please."
He opened his notebook. "I am going to read to you, Mrs. North, the sequence of events, between the hours of 9.35 and 10.05, according to your own evidence, and to that of the Constable who discovered F'letcher's body. If I have got any of the times wrong, you must stop me. To begin with, at 9.35 you arrived at the side entrance of Greystones. You noticed a short, stout man come out of the gate, just before you reached it, and walk away towards Vale Avenue."
She was clasping the arms of her chair rather tensely, but when he paused, and looked inquiringly at her, she replied with composure. "Yes, that is correct."
"You entered the garden of Greystones, walked up the path, and found Ernest F'letcher alone in his study."
"Yes."
"At 9.45, after a short dispute with Fletcher, you left the study, by the way you had entered, unattended, and were about to go home, when you heard footsteps approaching up the path. You then concealed yourself behind a bush a few feet from the path."
"Yes. I've already told you all this."
"Just a moment, please. You were able to see that this new visitor was a man of medium height and build, wearing a light Homburg hat, and carrying no stick in his hand; but you were not able to recognise him."
She saidd nervously: "I thought he seemed to be quite an ordinary-looking person, but I only caught a glimpse of him, and the light had practically gone. I couldn't swear to anything about him."
"We won't go into that at present. This man entered the study through the window, closing it behind him, and remained there until approximately 9.58. At 9.58, he came out of the study, followed by Fletcher, who escorted him in a leisurely fashion to the gate. As soon as both men were out of sight round the bend in the path, you went back into the study to search in the desk for your IOUs. You heard Fletcher returning to the house, and you escaped from the study before he reached it, passing through the door into the hall. While you were in the hall, the tall-case clock there struck the hour of 10. 00. But I must tell you, Mrs. North, that the clock was a minute slower than the one in the study, so that the time was actually one minute past ten."
"I don't see -'
"I think you will, for I am coming now to the evidence of the Constable. At 10.02 he observed, from the point where Maple Grove runs into Vale Avenue, a man coming out of the side gate of Greystones, and making off towards the Arden Road. Thinking the circumstance suspicious, he made his way down Maple Grove, entered the garden of Greystones by the side gate, and walked up the path to the study window. There he discovered the body of Ernest Fletcher, lying across the desk, with his head smashed. The time then, Mrs. North, was 10.05 p.m."
She faltered: "I don't think I understand."
"If you think it over, I feel sure you will," he suggested. "If your evidence is true, Fletcher was alive at one minute past ten."
"Yes," she said hesitantly. "Yes, of course he must have been."
"Yet at 10.02 the Constable saw an unknown man coming out of the garden-gate; and by 10.05 Fletcher was dead, and there was no trace to be found of his murderer."
"You mean it couldn't have happened?"
"Consider it for yourself, Mrs. North. If you say that the man you saw left at 9.58, who was the man the Constable saw?"
"How can I possibly tell?"
"Can you suggest any reason to account for his presence in the garden?"
"No, of course I can't. Unless he murdered Ernie."
"In considerably less than a minute?"
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. "I suppose not. I don't know. Are you - are you accusing me of having murdered Ernie Fletcher?"
"No, Mrs. North. But I am suggesting that you have falsified your evidence."
"It's not true! I did see Ernie taking that man to the gate! If there was another man in the garden, I knew nothing of it. You've no right to say I falsified my evidence! Why should I?"
"If, Mrs. North, you did, in point of fact, recognise the man who entered the garden, that in itself might constitute a very good reason for falsifying your evidence."
Sally's hand descended on her sister's shoulder, and gripped it. "Quiet. You're not obliged to answer."
"But I didn't! What I told you was true! I know nothing about the second man, and since I heard Ernie whistling just before I went into the hall I presume he was alive at a minute past ten. You want me to say he didn't see that man out, but you won't succeed! He did!"
"That's enough," said Sally. She looked across at Hannasyde. "My sister is entitled to see her solicitor before she answers any questions, I think. Well, she isn't going to say any more now. You've heard her evidence: if you can't make it fit with your constable's evidence, that's your look out, not hers."
She spoke with considerable pugnacity, but Hannasyde replied without any apparent loss of temper: "Certainly she may consult her solicitor before answering me. I think she would be wise to. But perhaps she will be good enough to tell me where I may find Mr. John North?"
"I don't know!" Helen said sharply. "He didn't tell me where he was going. All I can tell you is that he isn't coming back to dinner, and may be late home."
"Thank you," said Hannasyde, rising to his feet. "Then I won't detain you any longer, Mrs. North."
Helen stretched her hand towards the bell, but Sally said curtly: "I'll see him out," and strode to the door and opened it.
When she returned to the library she found her sister pacing up and down, a twisted handkerchief being jerked between her hands. She looked at her under frowning brows, and inquired: "So now what?"
"What am I going to do?"
"Search me. Do you feel inclined to tell me the truth?"
"What I have already said is the truth, and nothing will make me go back on it!" Helen said, holding Sally's eyes with her own.
There was a slight pause. "All right," Sally said. "I don't know that I blame you."