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with his air of resolve and concentration; tall, thin, intense-looking Mark Lester with his manner of being held back by bonds that might break at any moment; Bobby Owen in all the vigour of his splendid young manhood, alert and strong in mind and body, too; all three of them seemed somehow smaller in her presence. Mitchell said to her:
    â€˜You know Mr Lester?’
    She turned her grave and questioning eye from Mitchell to Mark and then back, and she bent slightly her stately head.
    â€˜I understand you are engaged to be married?’
    â€˜That is so,’ she answered quietly, and then, looking at Mark, she added: ‘I knew you would come as soon as you heard.’
    The young man flushed and gave her a quick look of gratitude and devotion. It was odd, Bobby thought, that this look appeared slightly to trouble her, as if it had awakened an emotion deeper than she had expected.
    â€˜I think,’ Mitchell continued, ‘you told the butler here that you saw Mr Lester in the garden, near the drawing-room window, about half past six? Is that so?’
    â€˜I saw someone; I only had a glimpse,’ she answered. ‘Was it you, Mark?’
    â€˜No, I went straight home from the City and have been there ever since,’ he answered.
    â€˜Then it must have been someone else,’ she answered tranquilly. ‘I did see someone; I am sure of that.’ She paused and something like a faint smile fluttered for a moment at the corners of her mouth. ‘I suppose because I was thinking of Mr Lester, I thought it was him. I knew he wasn’t coming to-night but I expect I hoped he might.’ Again Mark looked at her with the same manner of devotion and of delight at her having had such a hope; and again Bobby thought that he could see she was for a passing moment a trifle surprised or even troubled by the emotion that he showed. It was almost as if his feeling for her surprised her, and yet they were an engaged couple, still presumably under the influence of the mutual passion and attraction that had brought them together.
    Whether Mitchell also had noticed this Bobby was not sure, but it was quite plain that the Superintendent was a little disconcerted. It was perhaps not altogether surprising that a young girl, just engaged, should jump to the conclusion that any young man she had a glimpse of near the house was her lover coming to visit her – hope, expectation, longing, these soon produce a ‘wish-fantasy’ easily taken for reality. All the same he was not satisfied. So he took refuge in his customary device of a flood of words that however dried up rather more quickly than usual under Brenda’s calm and steady eyes.
    Mark said:
    â€˜Well, it wasn’t me Miss Laing saw, but it looks as if that gave you something to go on. If it was the murderer, then you know it was someone about my size and build.’
    â€˜Yes,’ agreed Mitchell. ‘Was the person you saw,’ he added to Brenda, ‘wearing a brown tweed lounge suit like this gentleman? Do you remember?’
    â€˜I think he had on a dark coat and striped trousers,’ Brenda answered. ‘You have a suit like that, Mark?’
    â€˜Yes, but I put it aside to send to the cleaners two or three days ago,’ Mark answered. ‘It’s not gone yet.’
    â€˜Interesting,’ murmured Mitchell, and glancing at Bobby saw that he, too, was thinking of the morsel of striped trousering found outside the library window.
    Only who was it who had left that behind him? And was it the murderer? And, if so, how had he been able to carry out a murder at one end of the house, a burglary at the other, and yet escape being seen except for this passing glimpse Miss Laing reported? Mitchell shook his head; it seemed impossible to him and yet he did not know what to make of it.
    Mark turned abruptly to Brenda. It was a little as if something that had been holding him back had been suddenly slackened, so that