tly and
escape through one of those three rooms.... The fact that you went
through her window, you know," he added coldly, "might have suggested,
if it became known, a certain suspicion in regard to the lady herself. I
think you understand me."

Marlowe turned upon him with a glowing face. "And I think you will
understand me, Mr. Trent," he said in a voice that shook a little, "when
I say that if such a possibility had occurred to me then, I would have
taken any risk rather than make my escape by that way.... Oh, well!" he
went on more coolly, "I suppose that to any one who didn't know her the
idea of her being privy to her husband's murder might not seem so
indescribably fatuous. Forgive the expression." He looked attentively at
the burning end of his cigarette, studiously unconscious of the red flag
that flew in Trent's eyes for an instant at his words and the tone of
them.

That emotion, however, was conquered at once. "Your remark is perfectly
just," Trent said with answering coolness. "I can quite believe, too,
that at the time you didn't think of the possibility I mentioned. But
surely, apart from that, it would have been safer to do as I said: go by
the window of an unoccupied room."

"Do you think so?" said Marlowe. "All I can say is I hadn't the nerve to
do it. I tell you, when I entered Manderson's room I shut the door of it
on more than half my terrors. I had the problem confined before me in a
closed space, with only one danger in it, and that a _known_ danger: the
danger of Mrs. Manderson. The thing was almost done: I had only to wait
until she was certainly asleep after her few moments of waking up, for
which, as I told you, I was prepared as a possibility. Barring
accidents, the way was clear. But now suppose that I, carrying
Manderson's clothes and shoes, had opened that door again and gone in my
shirt-sleeves and socks to enter one of the empty rooms. The moonlight
was flooding the corridor through the end-window. Even if my face were
concealed, nobody could mistake my standing figure for Manderson's.
Martin might be going about the house in his silent way. Bunner might
come out of his bedroom. One of the servants who were supposed to be in
bed might come round the corner from the other passage--I had found
Celestine prowling about quite as late as it was then. None of these
things was very likely; but they were all too likely for me. They were
uncertainties. Shut off from the household in Manderson'