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By Root 802 0

purpose; to tie a man’s hands, for example. No, the Vicar’s boat had first been cut loose from its moorings, and then it had been tied up again, either to some other post or to some other boat, and once more it had been necessary to cut it with a knife instead of untying it. This was puzzling, because ordinarily what man has done man can undo, if it is the same man. You had to allow for accident; e.g., two ropes might have been tied together, and then swelled through being left in the water; or some sudden need for haste might have arisen, so that there was no leisure for untying knots. But following out the indications of the painter for what they were worth, you were led to the conclusion that the painter had been twice cut; that a different person had been responsible for the second cut, and that this new person was shorter than the other. The Vicar, for example, who was tallish, might have cut the rope in the first instance; but if it was he who re-tied the boat, he would naturally do so at a height which would make it possible for him to untie it again without difficulty. This new figure in the story might be called x-n, the original painter cutter being labelled x. Now, it was possible that x-n was simply the Admiral. But the question arose whether you had not to allow for two people besides the Admiral, both concerned in the doings of that night, x and x-n. Holland might be x, but such was his height that he might have been expected to untie the boat even from its first moorings.

26. Why was the body found in a coat? It was a pity, when you came to think of it, that that question had not been put down immediately after No. 20. It would have been a rhyme. Rudge, in his youth, had tried to fill up the last lines of limericks, but he had never claimed to be a poet, and it was a new experience for him to find himself in the position of the young Ovid, writing verse unconsciously. Yes, to be sure, that great-coat. If the Admiral really went into Whynmouth, and really meant to catch the late train, it was conceivable that he would have taken a coat with him to protect him against the chill of the early morning. But Rudge was altogether inclined to discredit that projected railway journey. If the Admiral really went to Whynmouth, or to any other point along the river, in a boat and with the intention of returning in a boat, he would only have encumbered himself with a fairly substantial overcoat for one reason—he must have anticipated having to hang about somewhere waiting for somebody, talking to somebody, in the open air, and was afraid that he would get a chill after taking exercise without this precaution. On the other hand, the great-coat was a loose one; what they call in the shops “something in the style of a Raglan.” It would have been quite possible, then, for the murderer, unless he were squeamish about handling corpses, to pull the overcoat on to a dead body in a perfectly convincing way. Now, what would that mean? Probably, that the murderer was elaborating a “frame-up” as before; having disseminated the idea that the Admiral meant to go up to London by the late train, he went on to give that idea corroboration by vesting his victim suitably for such a journey.

27. And now, why the newspaper in the pocket? If the Admiral had really intended a train journey, and had gone into the house to get his coat with that in view, was it not humanly certain that his eye would have fallen on the newspaper close by, and that he would have crammed the familiar copy in his great-coat there and then? The train-service from Whynmouth to London is not distinguished for speed, and most residents arm themselves with some kind of literature before they set out on it. But this the Admiral had not done; the second copy found in the hall the morning after the murder was the genuine article, for it was marked “Admiral Pennystone,” with one of Mr. Tolwhistle’s characteristic mis-spellings. Where did the unmarked copy come from? The shops and the bookstalls at Whynmouth were all shut by nine; and there were no longer any street vendors