may do something desperate, so Roofe does something desperate himself. He tells Pullin that he must not call at his office, nor must anybody see them together anywhere for fear of suspicion. He suggests that he, Roofe, should call at Pullin’s lodgings late one night, and bring the money. Pullin is to let him in himself, so that nobody may see him. Pullin consents, and thus assists in the concealment of his own murder. He stands at the front door smoking his pipe (you remember that Mrs. Beckle told me so), waiting for Roofe. When Roofe comes, Pullin takes him very quietly up to his room without attracting attention. Roofe, on his part, has prepared things by feigning a bad cold and going to bed early, going out--perhaps through the window--when all his household is quiet. There are plenty of late trains from Chadwell Heath that would bring him to Stratford. “Well, when they are safely in Pullin’s room, Roofe hears the front door shut and bolted, with all its squeaks and thumps, and decides that it won’t be safe to go out that way after he has committed his crime. The men sit and talk, and Pullin drinks. Roofe doesn’t. You will remember the bottle on the table, with only one glass. Roofe produces and writes a cheque for the £2,000, and Pullin hands back the I O U, which Roofe burns. _That_ would be the lower of the two charred pieces of paper, which we have there with the other, but can’t read. “Then the crime takes place. Perhaps Pullin drinks a little too much, perhaps he dozes--we shall never know, unless Roofe confesses circumstantially. At any rate, Roofe gets behind him, uses the sharp seaman’s knife he has brought for the purpose, and straightway the skipper is dead at his feet. Then Roofe gets back the cheque and burns _that._ After that he ransacks the whole room. He fears there may be some documentary evidence, unguarded letters or something of the sort, which, being examined, may throw some light on the _Egret_ affair. There are none. Then he sets about his escape. He has the whole night before him, and to make the thing look like a murder for ordinary plunder, and at the same time account for the upset room, he takes away all the dead man’s valuables, tied in that shawl. He sees the hook--just the thing he wants--and of course the sheets are an obvious substitute for a rope. He takes away the door-key, to make it seem likely that somebody inside the house had been the criminal, and then he simply goes away through the window, as I have already explained. At 5.45 there would be a train to Chadwell Heath, and that would land him home early enough to enable him to regain his bedroom unobserved. After that he wisely maintains the pretence of illness for a day or two.