tin 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 six-thirty. I should have made the best of it by driving
straight to the docks and making my ostentatious inquiries 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 break-down 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 some servant at a bedroom window if you got out by a
window on one of the other sides. But there were three unoccupied rooms
on that side: two spare bedrooms and Mrs. Manderson's sitting-room. I
should have thought it would have been safer, after you had done what
was necessary to your plan in Manderson's room, to leave it quie