into the room, or the murderer may have flung it open
and escaped from the room that way after committing the murder.
Personally, I do not think that he did, but I am not prepared altogether
to exclude the possibility of his having done so. But I am convinced
that he did not enter the bedroom by scaling the outside wall and
getting in through the window. In the first place, there are no marks of
any kind on the window sill or the window catch. There is not very much
one way or another in the absence of marks on the sill or even on the
catch, supposing the window was locked. The murderer might have opened
the catch from outside without leaving a mark--I have known the trick to
be done--and he might have got into the room without leaving any marks
on the sill, particularly if he wore rubber boots. But, what is far more
important, there are no marks on the wall outside, or any disturbance or
displacement of the Virginia creeper which covers a portion of the wall,
to suggest that the murderer climbed up to the room that way. I think it
is certain that if he had done so he would have left his marks on the
one or the other. The wall is of a soft old brickwork which would
scratch and show marks plainly, and the Virginia creeper would break
away. In any case, as I said this morning, it would barely sustain the
weight of a boy, or a very slight girl. Finally, there are no marks of
footsteps approaching the wall in the garden outside.

"The question of entry is naturally of great importance, and that was
why I questioned the butler this morning whether the blinds were drawn
in the dining-room last night. At that time, before I had had an
opportunity of making my subsequent investigations, I deemed it possible
that the murderer might have entered from outside by the window. In that
case he would have had to pass the dining-room windows to reach the
bedroom window, and might have been seen by one of the guests in the
dining-room. It would be dark at the time, but last night was a very
clear one, and his form might have been discerned flitting past the
dining-room windows. But the absence of footprints in the gravel, and
more particularly, in the soft yielding earth beneath the bedroom
window, is conclusive proof to me that he did not get into the room that
way.

"Did he escape by the window? That question is more difficult to answer.
It is quite possible that it might have been done without injury, but it
is a desperate feat to le