king that ass Malcolm Cromarty, and the
Farmond girl, and this hangman with the glass eye tell me all about
themselves and what their business was, without their ever suspecting
they were being pumped! For, mind you, I'd never set eyes on Malcolm
Cromarty or the Farmond girl before in my life! No, it wasn't at the
office I had the nastiest time. It was burying the body that night."

The boastful smile died off his lips and for a moment he shivered a
little.

"What happened about that?" enquired Carrington keenly.

Rattar's voice instinctively fell a little.

"When I got home that afternoon I found he wasn't quite dead after all!"

"That accounts for it!" murmured Carrington.

"For what?"

"Your maid heard him moving."

The prisoner seemed to have recovered from his passing emotion.

"And I told her it was a rat, and she swallowed it!" he laughed. "Well,
he didn't move for long, and I had fixed up quite a good scheme for
getting him out of the house. A man was to call for old papers. I even
did two voices talking in the hall to make the bluff complete! Not being
able to get his ring off his finger rather worried me, but I put that
right by an advertisement in the paper saying I'd lost it!"

He was arrested by the look on Carrington's face.

"What happened?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that gave me away?"

"Those superfluous precautions generally give people away."

"But how?"

"It doesn't matter now. You'll learn later. What next?"

"Next?" said Rattar. "Well, I just went on keeping my head and bluffing
people----" he broke off, looked at Superintendent Sutherland, and gave
a short laugh. "I only lost my nerve a bit once, and that was when the
glass-eyed hangman butted in and said he was going to get down a
detective. It struck me then it was time I was off--and what's more, I
started!"

The superintendent's mouth fell open.

"You--you weren't the man----" he began.

"Yes," scoffed the prisoner, "I was the man with toothache in that
empty carriage. I'd got in at the wrong side after the ticket collector
passed and just about twenty seconds before you opened the door. But the
sight of your red face made me change my plans, and I was out again
before that train started! A bright policeman you are! After that I
decided to stick it out and face the music; and I faced it."

His mouth shut tight and he sat back in his chair, his eyes travelling
round the others as though to mark their unwilling adm