wever....

'By the way, I may tell you this: in the extremely unlikely contingency
of Mrs Manderson remaining awake, and so putting out of the question my
escape by way of her window, I had planned simply to remain where I was
a few hours, and then, not speaking to her, to leave the house quickly
and quietly by the ordinary way. Martin would have been in bed by that
time. I might have been heard to leave, but not seen. I should have done
just as I had planned with the body, and then made the best time I
could in the car to Southampton. The difference would have been that
I couldn't have furnished an unquestionable alibi by turning up at the
hotel at 6.30. I should have made the best of it by driving straight to
the docks, and making my ostentatious enquiries there. I could in any
case have got there long before the boat left at noon. I couldn't see
that anybody could suspect me of the supposed murder in any case; but if
any one had, and if I hadn't arrived until ten o'clock, say, I shouldn't
have been able to answer, "It is impossible for me to have got to
Southampton so soon after shooting him." I should simply have had to say
I was delayed by a breakdown after leaving Manderson at half-past ten,
and challenged any one to produce any fact connecting me with the crime.
They couldn't have done it. The pistol, left openly in my room,
might have been used by anybody, even if it could be proved that that
particular pistol was used. Nobody could reasonably connect me with
the shooting so long as it was believed that it was Manderson who had
returned to the house. The suspicion could not, I was confident, enter
any one's mind. All the same, I wanted to introduce the element of
absolute physical impossibility; I knew I should feel ten times as
safe with that. So when I knew from the sound of her breathing that
Mrs Manderson was asleep again, I walked quickly across her room in my
stocking feet, and was on the grass with my bundle in ten seconds. I
don't think I made the least noise. The curtain before the window was of
soft, thick stuff and didn't rustle, and when I pushed the glass doors
further open there was not a sound.'

'Tell me,' said Trent, as the other stopped to light a new cigarette,
'why you took the risk of going through Mrs Manderson's room to escape
from the house. I could see when I looked into the thing on the spot why
it had to be on that side of the house; there was a danger of being seen
by Martin, or by s