hat about the curtains? I am wondering whether anyone outside the
house could have seen into the room."

"Easily, sir, I should say, if he had got into the grounds on that side.
The curtains were never drawn in the hot weather. Mr. Manderson would
often sit right in the doorway at nights, smoking and looking out into
the darkness. But nobody could have seen him who had any business to be
there."

"I see. And now tell me this. Your hearing is very acute, you say, and
you heard Mr. Manderson enter the house when he came in after dinner
from the garden. Did you hear him re-enter it after returning from the
motor-drive?"

Martin paused. "Now you mention it, sir, I remember that I did not. His
ringing the bell in this room was the first I knew of his being back. I
should have heard him come in, if he had come in by the front. I should
have heard the door go. But he must have come in by the window." The man
reflected for a moment, then added: "As a general rule, Mr. Manderson
would come in by the front, hang up his hat and coat in the hall, and
pass down the hall into the study. It seems likely to me that he was in
a great hurry to use the telephone, and so went straight across the lawn
to the window--he was like that, sir, when there was anything important
to be done. He had on his hat, now I remember, and had thrown his
great-coat over the end of the table. He gave his order very sharp, too,
as he always did when busy. A very precipitate man indeed, was Mr.
Manderson; a hustler, as they say."

"Ah! He appeared to be busy. But didn't you say just now that you
noticed nothing unusual about him?"

A melancholy smile flitted momentarily over Martin's face. "That
observation shows that you did not know Mr. Manderson, sir, if you will
pardon my saying so. His being like that was nothing unusual; quite the
contrary. It took me long enough to get used to it. Either he would be
sitting quite still and smoking a cigar, thinking or reading, or else he
would be writing, dictating, and sending off wires all at the same time,
till it almost made one dizzy to see it, sometimes for an hour or more
at a stretch. As for being in a hurry over a telephone message, I may
say it wasn't in him to be anything else."

Trent turned to the inspector, who met his eye with a look of answering
intelligence. Not sorry to show his understanding of the line of inquiry
opened by Trent, Mr. Murch for the first time put a question:

"Then you left him