let me finish what I was going to say, I'll show you the proof that I'm
not telling you lies--though you're mistaking my meaning in regard to
her Ladyship....

'Leave her Ladyship out of it, will you,' McKeith snarled, his teeth
showing between his tense lips.

'I would do that willingly, Boss, for there's no disrespect intended I
can assure you. Only it means that this Wombo business will have to be
reported, and if you can help me to the right evidence--well, so much
the pleasanter for all parties,' returned the Police Inspector craftily.

McKeith made a slight assenting movement of his head, but said nothing.
His brows puckered, and he stiffened himself as he listened, strung to
the quick, while Harris continued.

'Well--I did see--that lady,'--the volcanic gleam from McKeith's eyes
stopped him from pronouncing Lady Bridget's name. 'I saw her come out
of that room,' he jerked his thumb along the veranda. 'The moon was
right on her just then. I saw her give a shiver--she'd been out in the
wet. Then she walked up the veranda to where there's the covered bit
joining on to the Old Humpey, and I noticed her sit down on the steps--'

'Stop,' broke in McKeith. 'If you were on the veranda over there, you
couldn't have seen as far as the steps.'

'Right you are, Boss. But I wasn't waiting on the veranda. When the
lady turned her back, I moved into the yard, and I was standing by that
flower-bush'--Again he jerked his thumb, this time to the centre bed,
and a young bohinia shrub covered with pink blossoms 'If you try
yourself from there, you'll find you can look slick through to the
front garden. That's where I saw Maule step out of--I guessed he'd come
round by the back of the Old Humpey. I guessed too, he thought she
oughtn't to be sitting out there in the damp--She was shivering
again--she'd put a rug that was lying on the steps round her. He just
picked her up in his arms, and carried her right along, and when I
stepped across I saw him take her into one of those rooms at the end of
the front veranda....'

A muffled growl, something like the sound a hunted beast might make
when the dogs had got to touch of him, came from McKeith. Again he
stiffened himself; his lips hard pressed; his eyes on Harris' face. The
Police Inspector avoided his gaze; but he too was watchful.

'You see I was thinking of my prisoner, and wondering if there could be
anything afoot about him. So as I knew there was nobody then--in Mr
Maule's