head. Each
of his hearers, too, drew a deep breath, but not audibly.

"Everything else you know," he said. He took a cigarette from a box
beside him and lighted it. Trent watched the very slight quiver of the
hand that held the match, and privately noted that his own at the moment
was not so steady.

"The shoes that betrayed me to you," pursued Marlowe after a short
silence, "were painful all the time I wore them, but I never dreamed
that they had given anywhere. I knew that no footstep of mine must
appear by any accident in the soft ground about the hut where I laid the
body, or between the hut and the house, so I took the shoes off and
crammed my feet into them as soon as I was inside the little door. I
left my own shoes, with my own jacket and overcoat, near the body, ready
to be resumed later. I made a clear footmark on the soft gravel outside
the French window, and several on the drugget round the carpet. The
stripping off of the outer clothing of the body and the dressing of it
afterwards in the brown suit and shoes, and putting the things into the
pockets, was a horrible business; and getting the teeth out of the mouth
was worse. The head ... but you don't want to hear about it. I didn't
feel it much at the time. I was wriggling my own head out of a noose,
you see. I wish I had thought of pulling down the cuffs, and had tied
the shoes more neatly. And putting the watch in the wrong pocket was a
bad mistake. It had all to be done so hurriedly.

"You were wrong, by the way, about the whisky. After one stiffish drink
I had no more; but I filled up a flask that was in the cupboard, and
pocketed it. I had a night of peculiar anxiety and effort in front of
me, and I didn't know how I should stand it. I had to take some once or
twice during the drive. Speaking of that, you give rather a generous
allowance of time in your document for doing that run by night. You say
that to get to Southampton by half-past six in that car under the
conditions, a man must, even if he drove like a demon, have left
Marlstone by twelve at latest. I had not got the body dressed in
the other suit, with tie and watch-chain and so forth, until nearly
ten minutes past; and then I had to get to the car and start it
going.... But then I don't suppose any demon would have taken the risks
I did in that car at night, without a head-light. It turns me cold to
think of it now.

"There's nothing much to say about what I did in the house. I spent the