id not leave her bedroom till half-past six, so that we may be
sure all the various doors and windows have not yet been unfastened;
while the season of the year is a guarantee that nothing had been left
open. The front door through which Mr. Mortlake has gone out before
half-past four, is guarded by the latch-key lock and the big lock. On
the upper floor are two rooms--a front room used by deceased for a
bedroom, and a back room which he used as a sitting-room. The back room
has been left open, with the key inside, but the window is fastened. The
door of the front room is not only locked, but bolted. We have seen the
splintered mortise and the staple of the upper bolt violently forced
from the woodwork and resting on the pin. The windows are bolted, the
fasteners being firmly fixed in the catches. The chimney is too narrow
to admit of the passage of even a child. This room, in fact, is as
firmly barred in as if besieged. It has no communication with any other
part of the house. It is as absolutely self-centered and isolated as if
it were a fort in the sea or a log-hut in the forest. Even if any
strange person is in the house, nay, in the very sitting-room of the
deceased, he cannot get into the bedroom, for the house is one built for
the poor, with no communication between the different rooms, so that
separate families, if need be, may inhabit each. Now, however, let us
grant that some person has achieved the miracle of getting into the
front room, first floor, 18 feet from the ground. At half-past six, or
thereabouts, he cuts the throat of the sleeping occupant. How is he then
to get out without attracting the attention of the now roused landlady?
But let us concede him that miracle, too. How is he to go away and yet
leave the doors and windows locked and bolted from within? This is a
degree of miracle at which my credulity must draw the line. No, the room
had been closed all night--there is scarce a trace of fog in it. No one
could get in or out. Finally, murders do not take place without motive.
Robbery and revenge are the only conceivable motives. The deceased had
not an enemy in the world; his money and valuables were left untouched.
Everything was in order. There were no signs of a struggle. The answer
then to our second inquiry--was the deceased killed by another
person?--is, that he was not.

"Gentlemen, I am aware that this sounds impossible and contradictory.
But it is the facts that contradict themselves. It s