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By Root 812 0

itself, “To throw suspicion on the Vicar” for which reason, too, the hat was doubtless thrown in. To suppose that the Vicar, if he were really privy to the murder, would allow his connection with it to be thus blatantly advertised was ridiculous. But then, was it not almost equally ridiculous to suppose that the criminal had chosen the Vicar as his scapegoat? The frame-up, in that case, was inconceivably clumsy work. The simple bluff of pretending that the Vicar was the criminal seemed too simple; the double bluff of pretending to have pretended that the Vicar was the criminal seemed too complicated. Yet, for what other purpose could the Vicarage boat have been dragged into the story at all? It might indicate that the murderer had started from the other side of the river, and had found that a borrowed boat saved the trouble of going round by the bridge. On the other hand, it might indicate that the murderer had wanted the police to think just that, having in fact started his operations from the Rundel Croft bank. There was not much to be made of this clue, and yet it haunted the imagination.

22. Why was the Vicar’s hat left behind? Assuming for the moment that Mount was the criminal, the question admitted of no ready answer. On the whole, people are hat-wearers or bare-headers; the former class will notice the absence of the familiar feeling as a kind of discomfort. You would expect the murderer, passing his hand over his forehead, to cry out instinctively, “Good heavens, where is my hat?” An unconscious exchange of hats between the murderer and his victim seemed just possible; Holland had fancied a clerical appearance about the hat which the Admiral, if it was the Admiral, had worn that night. Again, assuming that the murderer came from the direction of the Vicarage, it was possible that he had found the hat lying derelict in the summer-house, and had borrowed it for his own purpose—to hide his face, for example. Mem.—Examine the hat on the off-chance of finding lay hairs adhering to it.

23. Why was the key to the french window found in the bottom of the Admiral’s boat? This key business was less puzzling. Presumably, when Elma left her uncle to lock up the boat, she took the key up with her, and left it in the french window, on the outside, so that he could let himself in later. Did he so let himself in? It looked as if he must have, to find his great-coat. Then, if he ever went out again alive, he would lock the window from the outside and slip the key into his pocket. It might fall out of his pocket, easily enough, when his dead body was put into the boat. Alternatively, if the Admiral was in fact killed in his garden before he had time to re-enter the house, the criminal would no doubt use the key to let himself in, when he was in search of the hidden papers. Once he had got those papers, and the Admiral was dead, it did not matter what he did with the key; indeed, it was necessary to get rid of it somehow.

24. Why was the Admiral’s boat moored, contrary to custom, by the bows? Here was a point of genuine significance. It meant that this boat, too, had figured somehow in the movements of that August night. Either the Admiral had been abroad on her, and had been caught in the middle of his travels; or else the criminal, having despatched him in his own garden, had made use of two boats in disposing of the body, or possibly in securing his own escape. And for some reason, a baffling one, surely, he had thought it more important to leave the Admiral’s boat moored than the Vicar’s. Inexplicably, he must have thought that things looked more natural this way. Another pertinent consideration arose: Elma must surely have known her uncle’s little fad about the mooring of boats; and therefore if she or anybody acting under her immediate direction had been guilty of the murder, it was hard to believe that the boat would not have been found in the morning moored as usual.

25. Why is a whole length of the painter missing? And such a small length; not as much as you would naturally cut off if you needed the rope for some unusual