"Shall I put these things back?"

Antony looked up with a start.

"What? Oh, yes. No, I'll put them back. You give me a light, will you?"

Very slowly and carefully he put the clothes back in the bag, pausing as
he took up each garment, in the certainty, as it seemed to Bill, that
it had something to tell him if only he could read it. When the last of
them was inside, he still waited there on his knees, thinking.

"That's the lot," said Bill.

Antony nodded at him.

"Yes, that's the lot," he said; "and that's the funny thing about it.
You're sure it is the lot?"

"What do you mean?"

"Give me the torch a moment." He took it and flashed it over the ground
between them. "Yes, that's the lot. It's funny." He stood up, the bag in
his hands. "Now let's find a hiding-place for these, and then--" He said
no more, but stepped off through the trees, Bill following him meekly.

As soon as they had got the bag off their hands and were clear of the
copse, Antony became more communicative. He took the two keys out of his
pocket.

"One of them is the office key, I suppose, and the other is the key of
the passage cupboard. So I thought that perhaps we might have a look at
the cupboard."

"I say, do you really think it is?"

"Well, I don't see what else it can be."

"But why should he want to throw it away?"

"Because it has now done its work, whatever it was, and he wants to wash
his hands of the passage. He'd throw the passage away if he could. I
don't think it matters much one way or another, and I don't suppose
there's anything to find in the cupboard, but I feel that we must look."

"Do you still think Mark's body might be there?"

"No. And yet where else can it be? Unless I'm hopelessly wrong, and
Cayley never killed him at all."

Bill hesitated, wondering if he dare advance his theory.

"I know you'll think me an ass--"

"My dear Bill, I'm such an obvious ass myself that I should be delighted
to think you are too."

"Well, then, suppose Mark did kill Robert, and Cayley helped him to
escape, just as we thought at first. I know you proved afterwards that
it was impossible, but suppose it happened in a way we don't know about
and for reasons we don't know about. I mean, there are such a lot of
funny things about the whole show that--well, almost anything might have
happened."

"You're quite right. Well?"

"Well, then, this clothes business. Doesn't that seem rather to bear out
the escaping theory? Mark'