immediately informed us that there was a
second key to the room. Benson kept silence because he had something to
hide.

"I now come to the events of the next morning. My investigation of the
rise and the pit during the afternoon had led to a discovery which
subsequently suggested to my mind that the missing money had been hidden
in the pit. I determined to try and descend it. I arose before daybreak,
as I did not wish any of the inmates of the inn to see me. Before going
to the pit I got out of the window and into the window of the next room,
as Penreath is supposed to have done. That experiment brought to light
another small point in Penreath's favour. The drop from the first window
is an awkward one--more than eight feet--and my heels made a deep
indentation in the soft red clay underneath the window. If Penreath had
dropped from the window, even in his stocking feet, the marks of his
heels ought to have been visible. There was not enough rain after the
murder was committed to obliterate them entirely. There were no such
marks under his window when we examined the ground the morning after
the murder.

"I next proceeded to the rise and lowered myself down the pit by the
creepers inside. About ten feet down the vegetable growth ceased, and
the further descent was impossible without ropes. But at the limit of
the distance to which a man can climb down unaided, I saw a peg sticking
into the side of the pit, with a fishing line suspended from it. I drew
up the line, and found attached to it the murdered man's pocket-book
containing the L300 he had drawn out of the bank at Heathfield the day
he was murdered.

"Let me now try to reconstruct the crime in the light of the fresh
information we have gained. Benson was in desperate straits for money,
and he knew that Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn L300 from the bank that
morning, all in small notes, which could not be traced. The fact that he
obtained a second key to the room suggests that he had been meditating
the act for some time past. It will be found, I think, when all the
facts are brought to light, that he obtained the second key when he
learnt that Mr. Glenthorpe intended to take a large sum of money out of
the bank. Penreath's chance arrival at the inn on the day that the money
was drawn out, probably set him thinking of the possibility of murdering
and robbing Mr. Glenthorpe in circumstances that would divert suspicion
to the stranger. Penreath unconsciously helped him by