the Red House
at 4.42 p.m. on the afternoon in question. He had been received by Mr.
Matthew Cayley, who had made a short statement to him, and he had then
proceeded to examine the scene of the crime. The French windows had been
forced from outside. The door leading into the hall was locked; he had
searched the room thoroughly and had found no trace of a key. In the
bedroom leading out of the office he had found an open window. There
were no marks on the window, but it was a low one, and, as he found
from experiment, quite easy to step out of without touching it with the
boots. A few yards outside the window a shrubbery began. There were no
recent footmarks outside the window, but the ground was in a very hard
condition owing to the absence of rain. In the shrubbery, however, he
found several twigs on the ground, recently broken off, together with
other evidence that some body had been forcing its way through. He had
questioned everybody connected with the estate, and none of them had
been into the shrubbery recently. By forcing a way through the shrubbery
it was possible for a person to make a detour of the house and get to
the Stanton end of the park without ever being in sight of the house
itself.

He had made inquiries about the deceased. Deceased had left for
Australia some fifteen years ago, owing to some financial trouble at
home. Deceased was not well spoken of in the village from which he and
his brother had come. Deceased and his brother had never been on good
terms, and the fact that Mark Ablett had come into money had been a
cause of great bitterness between them. It was shortly after this that
Robert had left for Australia.

He had made inquiries at Stanton station. It had been market-day at
Stanton and the station had been more full of arrivals than usual.
Nobody had particularly noticed the arrival of Robert Ablett; there had
been a good many passengers by the 2.10 train that afternoon, the train
by which Robert had undoubtedly come from London. A witness, however,
would state that he noticed a man resembling Mark Ablett at the station
at 3.53 p.m. that afternoon, and this man caught the 3.55 up train to
town.

There was a pond in the grounds of the Red House. He had dragged this,
but without result....

Antony listened to him carelessly, thinking his own thoughts all the
time. Medical evidence followed, but there was nothing to be got from
that. He felt so close to the truth; at any moment something