“Your window?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no-not mine. So I thought I’d look out.”

“Yes?”

“I put out my light and opened the window. I couldn’t see anything at first, but I could hear someone moving down there in the court. And then all at once Mr. Carroll opened his window just over the way and stood there looking out with the lighted room behind him.”

“See him?”

“Oh, yes-quite plainly. He leaned out and said, ‘Who’s there?’ and someone moved below and said, ‘Come along down -I want to speak to you.’ ”

“Yes-go on.”

“Mr. Carroll said, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ and the man in the court said, ‘It might be worth your while to keep a still tongue. Suppose you come down and talk it over.’ ”

“What did Carroll say to that?”

“He laughed. It was all very quiet, you know. I’ve got very quick hearing. It was just so I could hear it and no more. He laughed, and he said, ‘I’ll come down and let you in by one of those groundfloor windows,’ and he shut his window and pulled the curtains over it.”

“What did you do?”

“I shut my window and went back into the room and put the light on. I didn’t think it was any of my business, and I didn’t want them to know I’d been listening.”

“Did you hear anything after that?”

“No-”

“Nothing that might have been a blow, or a fall?”

“I was moving about, you see-pouring out water and having a wash. You don’t hear things when you’re washing-” There was something hesitating about her manner.

“But Carroll said, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ You’re sure about that?”

She had a shrinking look, but she said quite firmly,

“Yes, I’m sure about that. He said the name quite loud.”

“And you heard nothing more-nothing more at all after you shut your window?”

She seemed distressed.

“I don’t know-it isn’t fair to say if you’re not sure.”

“Then you did hear something?”

Her fingers twisted.

“Not to say hear. I was washing. I thought there was something-like someone calling.”

“What did you think when you heard it?”

“I thought it was Mr. Carroll calling out to Mr. Oakley. Just the name-that’s what I thought it was-the way he said it before, only louder. It must have been louder, or I wouldn’t have thought I heard it-but the water was running-I couldn’t swear to anything.”

He let her go.

When the door had closed behind her he threw himself back in his chair.

“Well, that puts a noose round Oakley’s neck all right!”

Miss Silver coughed delicately.

“Mrs. Tote will not swear that the person she saw in the court was Mr. Oakley.”

She sustained the full impact of a formidable frown.

“She heard Carroll address him as Oakley-she’ll swear to that.”

“That is not quite the same thing. Mr. Carroll may have been mistaken. In fact the final point you so skilfully elicited from Mrs. Tote confirms Mr. Oakley’s story. He explains his presence in the court by saying that he thought someone was calling him and hastened in the direction from which he believed the sound to come.”

Lamb gave a short annoyed laugh.

“And isn’t that just what he had to say? Carroll has shouted his name-anyone may have heard him. He’s got to put some kind of a gloss on it, so he uses it to account for his going round to that side of the house.”

With his frowning gaze upon Miss Silver, he was struck by the birdlike quality of her regard, the head a little on one side, the eyes very bright. He had seen her look like that before, and it meant something. In fact, the bird with its eye on a highly promising worm.

“If I might just put that question to Mr. Pearson, Chief Inspector-”

“It won’t keep?”

“I believe not.”

He jerked round in his chair.

“Ring, Frank!”

Pearson came in all agog. His nerves had received a severe shock, but he was being a good deal buoyed up by the fact that it was entirely due to his zeal that the police had arrived in time to arrest the murderer upon the very scene of his crime. That the circumstances of this case would provide him with the most interesting reminiscences, he was already aware. But this solace could not entirely prevent a nostalgic yearning for a future in which two murders would have become merely the subject of a tale. As he was subsequently to put it to his wife, “It’s all very well when it’s a has-been as you might say, but very upsetting to the nerves when it’s going on and you don’t know who’s going to be the next corpse.” Since murders do not commonly take place in the presence of two police officers, to say nothing of one of them being a Chief Inspector, he found the study a very comfortable place, and would have been quite willing to stay there all night.

Miss Silver’s words were therefore rather a disappointment.

“I only want to ask you one question, Mr. Pearson.”

He assumed the butler.

“Yes, madam?”

“When you came through the hall after locking up, did you put any wood on the fire?”

If anyone had been watching Frank Abbott he would have been observed to start.

“Oh, no, madam-I shouldn’t do that.”

“So I supposed. Did you notice the condition of the fire?”

“It is part of my duty to do so, as you might say. I wouldn’t go upstairs and leave a big fire, or anything that might fall out.”

“And the fire was low?”

“Three or four bits lying flat and quite charred through.”

“And you have put no wood on since?”

“Oh, no, madam.”

“Or anyone else?”

“No one has had the opportunity-not since the alarm was given.”

Miss Silver turned a look of extreme gravity upon the Chief Inspector.

“When I came downstairs after the murder I noticed a heavy crooked log at the back of the fire. It was not there when we all retired just before ten o’clock. When you began to speak about the weapon used in tonight’s murder, the fire as I had seen it when I went upstairs and as I saw it when I came down again came very strongly to my thought. At first it only seemed that there was some incongruity, but whilst you were talking to Sergeant Abbott I became aware that this extra piece of wood might very well be the missing weapon. I can only hope that the smouldering ash has not been hot enough to destroy possible evidences.”

Before she had finished speaking Frank Abbott was at the door.

Chapter XXXIV

Ten minutes later Lamb said, “Well, Miss Silver, we are very much obliged to you. There’s no doubt we’ve got the weapon. Fortunately Oakley must have been in too much of a hurry to do more than pitch that log in on the back of the fire without waiting to see where it landed. If it hadn’t rolled off what was left of the fire it would probably have caught. As it is, there’s no mistake about what it was used for.”

“Oakley?” Miss Silver coughed in rather a definite manner. “Mr. Oakley, Chief Inspector?”

He stared. Frank Abbott gave a slight start.

Miss Silver was knitting rapidly. She said,

“If that log was the weapon, Mr. Oakley was not the murderer. It is not possible.”

She got a grunt and a curt “Your reasons?”

“When Mr. Pearson came to tell me of the telephone conversation he had just overheard he mentioned that he had been shutting up the house. Every window on the ground floor was shut and fastened, every door locked and bolted-your men can confirm this. Even apart from the question of how Mr. Oakley could have left the house completely shut up after disposing of the weapon as you suggest, we are faced with another problem. Mr. Carroll did leave the house. He left it after it had been shut up for the night-since Pearson saw him going upstairs when he himself had finished locking up. He must have come down again. He must have opened some door or window in order to leave the house. Yet no door or window was found to be open or unlatched. Someone inside the house must have shut Mr. Carroll out. Is it not natural to suppose that it was the murderer? Mr. Oakley could not have done it.”