I do believe that I have caught a detective napping; a real private detective, one of the great infallibles of fiction. Mr. J. S. FLETCHER'S _Exterior to the Evidence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is one of those thrills in which any of the characters might have committed the murder and there is every reason, at times, to suspect that they have all had a hand in it. Over the moorland there ran a path, and at a spot known as Black Scar it came perilously near the edge of a forty-foot drop, with rocks at the bottom. Over this precipice went _Sir Cheville Stanbury_ at midnight, a very odd circumstance considering his life-long familiarity with the path. _Weathershaw_, the great detective called in to investigate the matter on behalf of one of the suspects, took a line of his own and eventually hit upon someone you and I would never have thought of. We have this excuse, that we had no idea of his existence until he was hit upon; but no more had _Weathershaw_. Now I am not going to give away the secret of this enticing affair, but I must dispute the detective's identification, on the last page but one, of the man responsible for _Sir Cheville's_ death. If you compare the statement of fact on page 301, seven lines from the bottom, which corroborates that on page 279, also seven lines from the bottom, with _Weathershaw's_ dramatic accusation, you will understand what I mean and you will be left in considerable doubt (as I was) of what the author means. Does he suggest that _Sir Cheville_ was never murdered at all? After so much excitement that would be a sad pity. * * * * *