the outside of Mr.
Glenthorpe's door this morning?"

"Quite easily. During the struggle or in the victim's death convulsions
the bed-clothes were disarranged, and Ronald saw the key beneath the
pillow. Or he may have searched for it, as he knew he would need it
before he could open the door and remove the body. It was easy for him
to climb through the window to commit the murder, but he couldn't remove
the body that way. After finding the key he unlocked the door, and put
the key in the outside, intending to lock the door and remove the key as
he left the room, so as to defer the discovery that Mr. Glenthorpe was
missing until as long after his own departure in the morning as
possible. He may have found it a difficult matter to stoop and lock the
door and withdraw the key while he was encumbered with the corpse, so
left it in the door till he returned from the pit. When he returned he
was so exhausted with carrying the body several hundred yards, mostly
uphill, that he forgot all about the key. That is my theory to account
for the key being in the outside of the door."

"It's an ingenious one, at all events," commented Colwyn. "But would
such a careful deliberate murderer overlook the key when he returned?"

"Nothing more likely," said the confident superintendent. "It's in
trifles like this that murderers give themselves away. The notorious
Deeming, who murdered several wives, and disposed of their bodies by
burying them under hearthstones and covering them with cement, would
probably never have been caught if he had not taken away with him a
canary which belonged to the last woman he murdered. It was a clue that
couldn't be missed--like the silk skein in Fair Rosamond's Bower."

"Here's another point: why did not Ronald, having disposed of the body,
disappear at once, instead of waiting for the morning?"

"Because if his room had been found empty in the morning, as well as
that of Mr. Glenthorpe's, the double disappearance would have aroused
instant suspicion and search. Ronald gauged the moment of his departure
very cleverly, in my opinion. On the one hand, he wanted to get away
before the discovery of Mr. Glenthorpe's empty bedroom; and, on the
other hand, he wished to stay at the inn long enough to suggest that he
had no reason for flight, but was merely compelled to make an early
departure. The trouble and risk he took to conceal the body outside
prove conclusively that he thought the pit a sufficiently safe