have been rare
instances of human beings with luminous eyes."

"Quite right, Inspector," I agreed; "I hope very shortly to have some
further particulars for you bearing upon this point. I am endeavoring
to obtain a work by Saint-Hilaire dealing with teratology."

"As to her extraordinary activity and agility," Gatton continued, "we
must remember that a privet hedge is not like a stone wall. I mean she
may not have actually cleared the whole six feet, and after all, this
is the age of the athletic girl. There are women athletes who can
perform some extraordinary feats of high-jumping. Of course, there are
still a number of witnesses to be discovered and examined, but I know
by now exactly what to expect. It's an ingenious idea, although not
entirely new to me.

"The whole thing has been managed by means of the telephone--a
powerful ally of the modern criminal. Briefly what happened was this:
The Red House--selected because of its lonely position, but also
because it was fairly accessible--was leased by our missing assassin
without any personal interview taking place. We have to look then in
the first instance for some one possessing considerable financial
resources. It was by the effective substitution of a year's rent--in
cash--for the more usual references, that our man--or woman--whom I
will call 'A' secured possession of the keys and right of entry to the
premises. A limited amount of furniture was obtained in the same
manner. We haven't found the firm who supplied it, but I don't doubt
that the business was done over the telephone, cash being paid as
before. Duplicate keys must have been made for some of the doors, I
think--a simple matter. We shall find that the furnishing people as
well as the caterer who later on supplied the supper were admitted to
the Red House by a district messenger or else had the keys posted to
them for the purpose.

"The whole business was built up around a central idea, simple in
itself: that of inveigling Sir Marcus into the prepared supper-room.
His attendance at the New Avenue Theater last night was doubtless
assured--although we may never prove it--by another of these
mysterious telephone messages, probably purporting to come from Miss
Merlin. The cold-blooded thoroughness with which 'A' arranged for a
crate to be delivered at the garage and for the body of the murdered
man to be taken to the docks and shipped to the West Indies,
illuminates the character of the person we have to