At Talboys the sittingroom was dark, though a light still burned in the casement above it and in the kitchen. Kirk knocked at the door, which was presently opened by Bunter in his shirtsleeves.

‘I’m very sorry to disturb his lordship so late,’ began Kirk, only then realising that it was past eleven.

‘His lordship,’ said Bunter, ‘is in bed.’

Kirk explained that, unexpectedly, a necessity had arisen to re-examine the sittingroom, and that he was anxious to get this done before the inquest. There was no need for his lordship to come down in person. Nothing was sought but permission to enter.

‘We should be most unwilling,’ replied Bunter. ‘to obstruct the officers of the law in the execution of their duty; but you will permit me to point out that the hour is somewhat advanced and the available illumination inadequate. Besides that, the sittingroom is situated exactly beneath his lordship’s-’

‘Superintendent! Superintendent!’ called a soft and mocking voice from the window above.

‘My lord?’ Mr Kirk stepped out of the porch to get a view of the speaker.

‘Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1. Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion, and would not be awak’d.’

‘Beg your pardon, my lord,’ said Kirk, devoutly thankful that the mask of night was on his face. And the lady listening, too!

‘Don’t mention it. Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘Only to let me take another look around downstairs,’ pleaded Kirk, apologetically.

‘Had we but world enough and time that trifling request, Superintendent, were no crime. But take whatever you like. Only do, as the poet sings, come and go en lissome, clerical, fruitless toe. The first is Marvell and the second, Rupert Brooke.’

‘I’m very much obliged,’ said Mr Kirk, generally, to cover the permission and the information. ‘The fact is, I got an idea.’

‘I only wish I had half your complaint. Do you want to unfold your tale now, or will it do in the morning?’

Mr Kirk earnestly begged his lordship not to disturb himself.

‘Well, good luck to it and good night.’

Nevertheless, Peter hesitated. His natural inquisitiveness wrestled with a right and proper feeling that he should credit Kirk with intelligence enough to pursue his own inquiries. Proper feeling prevailed, but he remained for fifteen minutes perched on the window-sill, while soft scrapes and bumpings sounded from below. Then came the shutting of the front door and steps along the path.

‘His shoulders are disappointed,’ said Peter aloud to his wife. ‘He has found a mare’s nest, full of cockatrice’s eggs.’

That was perfectly true. The rift in Kirk’s theory had widened and with alarming rapidity silenced all that he could find to say for Joe Sellon. Not only was it extremely hard to visualise any way by which Noakes could have fallen so as to injure himself on both sides at once, but it was now plainly evident that the cactus had remained all the while solidly in its place.

Kirk had thought of two possibilities: the outer pot might have been unhooked from the chain, or the inner pot removed from the outer. On careful examination, he discounted the first alternative. The brass pot had a conical base, which would prevent it from standing upright when taken down; moreover, in order to relieve the strain on the hook, the ring which united the three chains that rose from the sides of the pot itself had been secured to the first link above the hook by a sixfold twist of stout wire, the ends of which had been neatly turned in with the pliers. No one in his senses would have gone to the trouble of undoing that when he could more readily remove the inner pot. But here Kirk made a discovery which, while it did credit to his detective ability, destroyed all possibility of any such removal. Round the top of the shining brass pot ran a band of pierced work forming a complicated pattern, and within the openings the earthenware of the inner flower-pot was blackened with the unmistakable stain of brass-polish. If the flower-pot had been removed since the last cleaning, it was I inconceivable that it should have been replaced with such mathematical exactness as to show no thin red line of earthenware at the edges of that band of openwork. Kirk, disappointed, called Bunter to give his opinion. Bunter, disapproving but correctly ready to assist, agreed absolutely. What was more, when they tried, together, to shift the inner pot in the outer, it proved to be an exceedingly tight fit. Nobody, unaided, could have turned it after wedging it in so as to make the pierced band coincide with the outlines stencilled on the earthenware-certainly not an elderly man in a hurry by the light of distant candle. As a forlorn hope. Kirk asked:

‘Did Crutchley polish the brass this morning?’

‘I fancy not; he brought no brass-polish with him, nor did he use the materials contained in the kitchen cupboard. Will there be anything further tonight?’

Kirk gazed blankly about the room.

‘I suppose,’ he suggested, despairingly, ‘the clock couldn’t have been moved?’

‘See for yourself,’ said Bunter. But the plastered wall showed no trace of any hook or nail to which the clock might have been temporarily transferred. The nearest landmark to the east was the nail supporting ‘The Soul’s Awakening’ and that to the west, a fretwork bracket with a plaster image on it-both too light to take the clock and in the wrong line of sight from the window.

Kirk gave it up. ‘Well, that seems to settle it. Thanks very much.’

‘Thank you,’ retorted Bunter, austerely. Still dignified, in spite of his shirt-sleeves, he conducted the unwelcome guest to the door, as though ushering out a duchess.

Being human. Kirk could not but wish he had left his theory alone till after the inquest. All that he had done was to rule it definitely out of court, so that he could not now, in honesty, even hint at such a possibility.

Chapter XIII. This Way And That Way

‘And what,’ inquired Lord Peter Wimsey of Bunter the following morning, ‘did the Superintendent want last night?’

‘He wished to ascertain, my lord, whether the hanging cactus could have been removed from its containing pot during the events of last week.’

‘What, again? I thought he’d realised that it couldn’t. The marks of the brass polish should have told him that with half an eye. No need to get the step-ladder and bump round at midnight like a bumble-bee in a bottle.’

‘Quite so, my lord. But I thought it better not to intervene, and your lordship wished him to have every facility.’

‘Oh, quite. His brain works like the mills of God. But he has some other divine qualities; I know him to be magnanimous and suspect him of being merciful. He is trying hard to exonerate Sellon. That’s natural enough. But he’s attacking the strong side instead of the weak side of the case II against him.’

‘What do you think about Sellon yourself, Peter?’

They had breakfasted upstairs. Harriet was dressed, smoking a cigarette in the window. Peter, in the halfway dressing-gown stage, was warming the back of his legs at the fire. The ginger cat had arrived to pay its morning compliment, and had taken up a position on his shoulder.

‘I don’t know what to think. The fact is, we’ve got dashed little material for thinking with. It’s probably too early for thinking.’