Wendover had thought out his line of argument very carefully. He meant to convince the inspector once for all, and prevent him giving Cressida any further annoyance. “Don't let's hurry,” he suggested. “Just let's look around at the circumstances at that moment. You've got Staveley lying on the rock, stunned by his fall—or at any rate sufficiently knocked out to prevent his getting up at once. In the crash, his wrist-watch has stopped at 11.19; but the glass of it hasn't been broken. You know how easily some wrist-watches stop with a shock; even if you play a shot on the links with a watch on your wrist the swing of the club's apt to stop the machinery. “Then comes the rain. It soaks Staveley; but he's too muzzy to get up. The crack on the head keeps him quiet—or he may have been unconscious for a while. By and by he wakes up and scrambles to his feet; finds the rain pouring down; and mechanically he picks up his rainproof and puts it on. By that time the Fleetwood car is well on its way to the hotel. There was only one person near at hand.” “Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, you mean?” demanded the inspector. “You're trying to fix the murder on her, sir? She had a grudge against Staveley; and there he was, delivered into her hands if she wanted him. Is that it?” Wendover could not resist a final dig at Armadale. “I shouldn't care to commit myself too hastily to an accusation against anyone,” he said, smiling pleasantly at the crestfallen inspector. “Certainly not until I was sure of my ground, you understand?” Armadale was so engrossed in a reconsideration of the evidence that apparently Wendover's mockery escaped his attention. “Then your case is that the wrist-watch stopped at 11.19, when he fell the first time, but that the glass wasn't broken until he was shot down, later on?” “That's what seems to fit the facts,” Wendover averred, though without letting himself be pinned down definitely. “It's one way of looking at the business, certainly,” the inspector was forced to admit, though only grudgingly. “I can't just see a way of upsetting your notions right away. I'll think it over.” Sir Clinton had been listening with a detached air to the whole exposition. Now he turned to Wendover. “That was very neatly put together, squire, I must admit. The handling of the watch-stopping portion of the theme showed how well you've profited by your study of the classics. I wish I had time to read detective stories. Evidently they brighten the intellect.” Wendover was not deceived by this tribute to his powers. “Oh, of course I know well enough that you spotted the flaw long before I did. You told us, days ago, that there was one. It was when the inspector produced the pistol from Mrs. Fleetwood's blazer, I remember.”