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towards the door, Bobby was there, filling it so that none could pass, and Mitchell said:
    â€˜So you see, Mr Lester, that’s how it stands, and there’s one point I would like you to clear up if you can, and that is, what brought you here at half past six this evening?’
    â€˜But I’ve not been here before to-day at all,’ Mark answered impatiently.
    â€˜Not for a game of billiards with Sir Christopher?’
    â€˜Certainly not,’ Mark answered. ‘I’ve often had a game with him, of course, but not to-day.’
    â€˜There is evidence you were seen about half past six this evening near the drawing-room window here!’ Mitchell snapped, his thin, loquacious lips set and hard now, his eyes intent and fierce and dominating.
    But Mark only shook his head and looked puzzled.
    â€˜I’ve not been near here the whole day till now,’ he asserted.
    â€˜What have you been doing this evening?’ Mitchell demanded.
    â€˜I don’t see why you want to know,’ retorted Mark, a touch of excitement coming into his manner. ‘What are you asking for?’
    â€˜A murder has been committed and I am an officer of police charged with the investigation,’ Mitchell answered. ‘As such, I have a right to expect the help and assistance of every respectable law-abiding citizen.’
    â€˜Oh, well,’ Mark answered, his somewhat dramatic nature evidently impressed by this pronouncement – as Mitchell had meant he should be. ‘I left the City about five as usual – I’m with Baily and Leyland, the discount house. I got home some time before six and till dinner I was busy with a lecture I’m to give in a week or two on Chaucer. We had dinner at eight.’
    â€˜We?’
    â€˜My mother and I – I live with my mother. After dinner I left mother with her wireless and I went back to my work till mother came in to say Mrs Boyd, the vicar’s wife, had rung up to ask if it were true that Sir Christopher Clarke had been found shot. So I came here at once to see what had really happened.’
    â€˜Take you long?’
    â€˜I suppose about forty minutes or so. I had to walk as it’s so late. It only takes about ten minutes by tube.’
    â€˜Ah, yes, I see,’ murmured Mitchell, asking for Mark’s address and making a note of it. ‘What room do you use as a study?’
    â€˜It’s the one that used to be the breakfast-room,’ Mark answered, ‘but I don’t see–’
    â€˜No, no,’ interrupted Mitchell, who did not specially wish that Mark should ‘see’ as he called it. ‘On the ground floor, I suppose?’
    â€˜It’s on the right of the front door as you go in,’ Mark explained.
    â€˜Ah, yes, quite so,’ murmured Mitchell, waving aside a point that was evidently for him quite without interest or importance. ‘Anyone come in to see you while you were working?’
    â€˜I do not care to be interrupted,’ Mark answered with simple dignity, ‘when I am at work.’
    â€˜Very natural, too,’ agreed Mitchell warmly. ‘No one came in then? But I wonder how it is that when you were working in your study at home, you were seen in the garden here?’
    â€˜I wasn’t,’ said Mark. ‘Who told you such rot?’
    Bobby from his place at the door said:
    â€˜Miss Laing is coming downstairs, sir.’
    â€˜Ask her to come in here,’ Mitchell said.
    Bobby went across to her accordingly; and she followed him back into the room, a tall, dark, tragic figure, with, for all her superb composure, a strained look about her that showed how much she was feeling the recent tragedy. Bobby even noticed a faint trembling of the muscles of her strong, white hand. But that was all; and as she stood there it was odd how, by the mere force of her personality and her silence, she seemed to dominate them all. The big, experienced Superintendent,