“Nine-forty-five,” said Desmond, “showing conclusively that Miss Bardale was murdered, not between eight and eight twenty, but between nine-forty-five and ten o’clock. That case, concealing the repeater mechanism, escaped the notice of the murderer who set the hands back, as it escaped Farandol’s. Neither, of course, was looking for anything of the kind. What we have got to do now is to find out who was on the back stairs outside Miss Bardale’s flat between nine-thirty and ten last night, and, maybe, the night before as well. Whoever it was, he came from this or one of the neighbouring houses . . .” “How do you know that?” “If you will look out from the back door you will see that this house and the houses on either side are all furnished with these fire-staircases descending to a common well or court. Since we know that the murderer did not enter from the front, he must have come in from the back, either from this house or from one of the adjacent houses. Will you go off and explore the possibilities of this house and its neighbours? I’m staying on here for a bit. I’ll take a small bet that the murderer can’t be far off . . .” “I’ll go,” said Francis, grabbing his hat; “but you’ll lose your money. He’s over the hills and far away with Bannington’s report by this time, whoever he is!” “I wonder!” said Desmond enigmatically. CHAPTER IX THE FOOTSTEP IN THE DARK At ten minutes to eight that evening there came the rattle of nails on the glass panels of the door of Flat 7. Desmond opened and Francis darted in. He caught his brother’s arm. “Clubfoot!” he gasped. Swiftly Desmond laid his finger on his lips. He turned and closed the door leading from the hall into the little sitting-room. “One of Farandol’s men is inside,” he explained. “I’ve been staving him off all the afternoon, as I’m particularly anxious, for the moment, to keep the police out of this—at any rate, until I’ve heard your story!” Francis nodded understandingly. “For a week,” he said, “a lame man, a foreigner with a misshapen foot, has been a patient in the nursing-home which occupies the second, third, and fourth floors of the house next door to this. He calls himself Dr. Deinwitz, a Czecho-Slovak lawyer, and was brought here by his son, a fair young man with a scar on his face. The son represented that his father was suffering from acute neurasthenia and was in need of absolute rest and quiet. He made it a stipulation that his father’s presence should be kept a secret, otherwise, he said, he would be pestered to death by visitors. In order to be quiet, the son insisted that his father should have a room at the back on the top floor.” Desmond opened and clenched his hand. “Is he still there?” he asked tensely. Francis shook his head despondently. “He went out for the first time to-day to go to the City on business. He has kept his room on, but I doubt—”