erstood that he intended going in to Exeter before
luncheon, getting a bite to eat there, and taking the early afternoon
express for London. I found him with one of his men upon the porch roof,
busily engaged in making photographs of the bloody hand print upon the
window sill of the green room. He came down presently and joined me.

"Is it not a curious fact, Mr. Morgan," he remarked, as he reached the
foot of the short ladder he had used to ascend to the roof, "that,
although Li Min had not only the motive for the murder, namely, the
securing of the emerald Buddha, but also the opportunity, inasmuch as
he could readily have reached the porch roof from within the house by
means of the hall window, and while the hand print which I have been
photographing is small and delicate, like that of a woman, or indeed
like that of Li Min himself, yet I have tested every possible human
means whereby the windows and doors of that room could have been
bolted after the crime was committed, and I can see no possible way in
which it could have been done, unless either Major Temple or yourself
did it upon entering the room, which you certainly would neither of
you have any reason to do were Li Min the guilty person? In spite of
many of the peculiarities of Miss Temple's conduct, in spite of Major
Temple's altercation with Mr. Ashton, I have been prepared to believe
all along that Li Min was on this roof at or near daybreak yesterday
morning and I do not mind telling you that I have discovered certain
evidence--evidence which had before escaped me, that to my mind proves
it conclusively--yet how he could have entered that room, murdered Mr.
Ashton, secured the jewel, climbed out of the window and shut and
bolted it behind him on the inside is beyond my comprehension. It is
not humanly possible--it simply cannot be." He shook his head and
looked at me in a state of evident perplexity.

I felt unable to offer any suggestions of value, but I hazarded a
question. "Have you searched the attic above the room?" I asked.

"Thoroughly," he replied. "The rafters have never been floored over. The
lath and plaster of the ceiling are absolutely unbroken. As for the four
walls, two of them are exterior walls, without openings, except the
windows. One is the solid partition between the room and the hallway.
The fourth is equally solid, and of brick, between the green room and a
large closet adjoining it to the east, which has evidently been used as
a