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'The worst came when I had hardly begun my operations: the moment when Mrs Manderson spoke from the room where I supposed her asleep. I was prepared for it happening; it was a possibility; but I nearly lost my nerve all the same. However ....

'By the way, I may tell you this: in the extremely unlikely contingency of Mrs Manderson remaining awake, and so putting out of the question my escape by way of her window, I had planned simply to remain where I was a few hours, and then, not speaking to her, to leave the house quickly and quietly by the ordinary way. Martin would have been in bed by that time. I might have been heard to leave, but not seen. I should have done just as I had planned with the body, and then made the best time I could in the car to Southampton. The difference would have been that I couldn't have furnished an unquestionable alibi by turning up at the hotel at 6.30. I should have made the best of it by driving straight to the docks, and making my ostentatious enquiries there. I could in any case have got there long before the boat left at noon. I couldn't see that anybody could suspect me of the supposed murder in any case; but if any one had, and if I hadn't arrived until ten o'clock, say, I shouldn't have been able to answer, "It is impossible for me to have got to Southampton so soon after shooting him." I should simply have had to say I was delayed by a breakdown after leaving Manderson at half-past ten, and challenged any one to produce any fact connecting me with the crime. They couldn't have done it. The pistol, left openly in my room, might have been used by anybody, even if it could be proved that that particular pistol was used. Nobody could reasonably connect me with the shooting so long as it was believed that it was Manderson who had returned to the house. The suspicion could not, I was confident, enter any one's mind. All the same, I wanted to introduce the element of absolute physical impossibility; I knew I should feel ten times as safe with that. So when I knew from the sound of her breathing that Mrs Manderson was asleep again, I walked quickly across her room in my stocking feet, and was on the grass with my bundle in ten seconds. I don't think I made the least noise. The curtain before the window was of soft, thick stuff and didn't rustle, and when I pushed the glass doors further open there was not a sound.'

'Tell me,' said Trent, as the other stopped to light a new cigarette, 'why you took the risk of going through Mrs Manderson's room to escape from the house. I could see when I looked into the thing on the spot why it had to be on that side of the house; there was a danger of being seen by Martin, or by some servant at a bedroom window, if you got out by a window on one of the other sides. But there were three unoccupied rooms on that side; two spare bedrooms and Mrs sitting-room. I should have thought it would have been safer, after you had done what was necessary to your plan in Manderson's room, to leave it quietly and escape through one of those three rooms .... The fact that you went through her window, you know,' he added coldly, 'would have suggested, if it became known, various suspicions in regard to the lady herself. I think you understand me.'

Marlowe turned upon him with a glowing face. 'And I think you will understand me, Mr Trent,' he said in a voice that shook a little, 'when I say that if such a possibility had occurred to me then, I would have taken any risk rather than make my escape by that way.... Oh well!' he went on more coolly, 'I suppose that to any one who didn't know her, the idea of her being privy to her husband's murder might not seem so indescribably fatuous. Forgive the expression.' He looked attentively at the burning end of his cigarette, studiously unconscious of the red flag that flew in Trent's eyes for an instant at his words and the tone of them.

That emotion, however, was conquered at once. 'Your remark is perfectly just,' Trent said