pprised Kershaw of the movements of Smethurst, the
millionaire?"

CHAPTER III

HIS DEDUCTION

The man in the corner cocked his funny thin head on one side and looked
at Polly; then he took up his beloved bit of string and deliberately
untied every knot he had made in it. When it was quite smooth he laid it
out upon the table.

"I will take you, if you like, point by point along the line of
reasoning which I followed myself, and which will inevitably lead you,
as it led me, to the only possible solution of the mystery.

"First take this point," he said with nervous restlessness, once more
taking up his bit of string, and forming with each point raised a series
of knots which would have shamed a navigating instructor, "obviously it
was _impossible_ for Kershaw not to have been acquainted with Smethurst,
since he was fully apprised of the latter's arrival in England by two
letters. Now it was clear to me from the first that _no one_ could have
written those two letters except Smethurst. You will argue that those
letters were proved not to have been written by the man in the dock.
Exactly. Remember, Kershaw was a careless man--he had lost both
envelopes. To him they were insignificant. Now it was never _disproved_
that those letters were written by Smethurst."

"But--" suggested Polly.

"Wait a minute," he interrupted, while knot number two appeared upon the
scene, "it was proved that six days after the murder, William Kershaw
was alive, and visited the Torriani Hotel, where already he was known,
and where he conveniently left a pocket-book behind, so that there
should be no mistake as to his identity; but it was never questioned
where Mr. Francis Smethurst, the millionaire, happened to spend that
very same afternoon."

"Surely, you don't mean?" gasped the girl.

"One moment, please," he added triumphantly. "How did it come about that
the landlord of the Torriani Hotel was brought into court at all? How
did Sir Arthur Inglewood, or rather his client, know that William
Kershaw had on those two memorable occasions visited the hotel, and that
its landlord could bring such convincing evidence forward that would for
ever exonerate the millionaire from the imputation of murder?"

"Surely," I argued, "the usual means, the police--"

"The police had kept the whole affair very dark until the arrest at the
Hotel Cecil. They did not put into the papers the usual: 'If anyone
happens to know of the whereabouts, etc