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she says she did – the murder was committed at forty minutes past seven, a few minutes before or after.”
    “How the dickens do you know that?” asked the astonished officer. “Is there any proof?”
    Mr Reeder shook his head. “A romantic surmise.” He sighed heavily. “You have to realize, my dear Gaylor, that I have a criminal mind. I see the worst in people and the worst in every human action. It is very tragic. There are moments when” – he sighed again. “Forty minutes past seven,” he said simply. “That is my romantic surmise. The doctor will probably confirm my view. The body lay here,” he pointed to the hearthrug, “until – well, quite a considerable time.”
    Gaylor was skimming two closely written sheets of foolscap. Suddenly he stopped.
    “You’re wrong,” he said. “Listen to this statement made at the station by Miss Lynn. ‘I rang up my uncle from the station, telling him I might be late because of the snowy road. He answered “Come as soon as you can.” He spoke in a very low tone; I thought he sounded agitated!’ That knocks your theory about the time a little bit skew-wiff, eh?”
    Mr Reeder looked round and blinked open his eyes.
    “Yes, doesn’t it? It must have been terribly embarrassing.”
    “What was embarrassing?” asked the puzzled police officer.
    “Everything,” mumbled Mr Reeder, his chin falling on his breast.
     
5
     
    (“The trouble about Reeder,” said Gaylor to the superintendent in the course of a long telephone conversation, “is that you feel he does know something which he shouldn’t know. I’ve never seen him in a case where he hasn’t given me the impression that he was the guilty party – he knew so much about the crime?”
    “Humour him,” said the superintendent. “He’ll be in the Public Prosecutor’s Department one of these days. He never was in a case that he didn’t make himself an accessory by pinching half the clues.”)
    At five o’clock the detective shook the sleeper awake.
    “You’d better go home, old man,” he said. “We’ll leave an officer in charge here.”
    Mr Reeder rose with a groan, splashed some soda-water from a syphon into a glass and drank it.
    “I must stay, I’m afraid, unless you have any very great objection.”
    “What’s the idea of waiting?” asked Gaylor in surprise.
    Mr Reeder looked from side to side as though he were seeking an answer.
    “I have a theory – an absurd one, of course – but I believe the murderers will come back. And honestly I don’t think your policeman would be of much use, unless you were inclined to give the poor fellow the lethal weapon necessary to defend himself.”
    Gaylor sat down squarely before him, his large gloved hands on his knees.
    “Tell papa,” he said.
    Mr Reeder looked at him pathetically.
    “There is nothing to tell, my dear Mr Gaylor; merely suspicion, bred, as I said, in my peculiarly morbid mind, having perhaps no foundation in fact. Those two cards, for example – that was a stupid piece of bravado. But it has happened before. You remember the Teignmouth case, and the Lavender Hill case, with the man with the slashed chest? I think they must get these ideas out of books,” he said, bending over to stir the embers of the fire. “The craze for that kind of literature must necessarily produce its reaction.”
    Gaylor took the cards from his pocket and examined them.
    “A bit of tomfoolery,” was his verdict.
    Mr Reeder sighed and shook his head at the fire.
    “Murderers as a rule have no sense of humour. They are excitable people, frightened people, but they are never comic people.”
    He walked to the door and pulled it open. Snow had ceased to fall. He came back.
    “Where is the policeman you propose leaving on duty?” he asked.
    “I’ll find one,” said Gaylor. “There are half-a-dozen within call. A whistle will bring one along.”
    Mr Reeder looked at him thoughtfully.
    “I don’t think I should. Let us wait until daylight – or