es, even at the risk of
committing perjury, and getting into trouble himself, to help Mark to
escape. Is that right?"

Bill nodded.

"Well then, I want to ask you two questions. First, is it possible, as I
said before dinner, that any man would commit such an idiotic murder--a
murder that puts the rope so very tightly round his neck? Secondly, if
Cayley is prepared to perjure himself for Mark (as he has to, anyway,
now), wouldn't it be simpler for him to say that he was in the office
all the time, and that Robert's death was accidental?"

Bill considered this carefully, and then nodded slowly again.

"Yes, my simple explanation is a wash-out," he said. "Now let's have
yours."

Antony did not answer him. He had begun to think about something quite
different.

CHAPTER IX. Possibilities of a Croquet Set

"What's the matter?" said Bill sharply.

Antony looked round at him with raised eyebrows.

"You've thought of something suddenly," said Bill. "What is it?"

Antony laughed.

"My dear Watson," he said, "you aren't supposed to be as clever as
this."

"Oh, you can't take me in!"

"No.... Well, I was wondering about this ghost of yours, Bill. It seems
to me--"

"Oh, that!" Bill was profoundly disappointed. "What on earth has the
ghost got to do with it?"

"I don't know," said Antony apologetically. "I don't know what anything
has got to do with it. I was just wondering. You shouldn't have brought
me here if you hadn't wanted me to think about the ghost. This is where
she appeared, isn't it?"

"Yes." Bill was distinctly short about it.

"How?"

"What?"

"I said, 'How?'"

"How? How do ghosts appear? I don't know. They just appear."

"Over four or five hundred yards of open park?"

"Well, but she had to appear here, because this is where the original
one--Lady Anne, you know--was supposed to walk."

"Oh, never mind Lady Anne! A real ghost can do anything. But how did
Miss Norris appear suddenly over five hundred yards of bare park?"

Bill looked at Antony with open mouth.

"I--I don't know," he stammered. "We never thought of that."

"You would have seen her long before, wouldn't you, if she had come the
way we came?"

"Of course we should."

"And that would have spoilt it rather. You would have had time to
recognize her walk."

Bill was interested now.

"That's rather funny, you know, Tony. We none of us thought of that."

"You're sure she didn't come across the park when none