“Very well. I think it will make the thing plainer if I summarise separately all my conclusions from the evidence as a whole, from the beginning. Perhaps the same ideas struck you, but I’m sure you’ll excuse my going over them. Now here was a man undoubtedly murdered, and the murderer was gone from the room. There were two ways by which he could have gone--the door and the window. If he went by the window, then he was somebody who did not live in the place, since nobody seemed to have been missing when the girl came down, though, mind you, it was necessary to avoid relying on all she said, in view of her manner, and her almost acknowledged determination not to incriminate Foster. It seemed at first sight probable that the murderer had gone out by the door, because the key was gone entirely, and if he had left by the window he would probably have left the key in the lock to hinder anybody who attempted to get in with another key, or to peep. But then the blind was _up,_ and was found so in the morning. It would probably be pulled down at dark, and the murderer would be unlikely to raise it except to go out that way. But then the casement was shut and fastened. Just so; but can’t it be as easily shut and fastened from the outside as from the in? The catch is very loose, and swings by itself. True, this _prevents_ the casement shutting when it is just carelessly banged to, but see here.” He rose and went to the window. “Anybody from outside who cared to hold the catch back with his finger till the casement was shut as far as the frame could then shut the window completely, and the catch would simply swing into its appointed groove. [Illustration: “‘THE CATCH WOULD SIMPLY SWING INTO ITS APPOINTED GROOVE.’”] “And now see something more. You and I both looked at the sill outside. It is a smooth new sill--the house itself is almost new; but probably you saw in one place a sharply marked pit or depression. Look, it seems to have been drilled with a sharp steel point. It was absolutely new, for there was the powder of the stone about the mark. The wind has since blown the powder away. Now if a man had descended from that sill by means of a rope with a hook at the end, that was just the sort of mark I should expect him to leave behind. So that at any rate the balance of probability was that the murderer had left by the window. But there is another thing which confirms this. You will remember that when Mrs. Beckle mentioned that the sheets were gone from the bed you concluded that they had been taken to carry the swag.” “Yes, and so they were, as we have seen here in the bundle.”