“The--um--police rather fancy that Mr. Ligsey is dead,” he said, and there was a note of irritation in his voice as though he resented the police holding any theory at all. “Quite dead--um--murdered, in fact.” There was a long pause here. He knew instinctively that she had come to make some request, but it was not until she rose to go that she spoke her thoughts. “Clive wished to see you himself to make a proposition. He said that he did not think you were engaged on the--official side of the case, and he’s got a tremendous opinion of your cleverness, Mr. Reeder, and so of course have I. Is it humanly possible for you to take up this case… on Johnny’s side, I mean? Perhaps I’m being silly, but just now I’m clutching at straws.” Mr. Reeder was looking out of the window, his head moving slowly from side to side. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “I really am afraid not! The people on your--um--friend’s side are the police. If he is innocent, I am naturally on his side, with them. Don’t you see, young lady, that when we prove a man’s guilt we also prove everybody else’s innocence?” It was a long speech for Mr. Reeder, and he had not quite finished. He stood with his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes half closed, his body swaying to and fro. “Let me see now… if Ligsey were alive?… A very dense and stupid young man, quite incapable, I should have thought, of--um--so many things that have happened during the last twenty-four hours.” After Anna had left, he went to Southers’ house and interviewed Johnny’s father. The old man was bearing his sorrow remarkably well. Indeed, his principal emotion was a loud fury against the people who dared accuse his son. He led the way to the tool-shed in the yard and showed the detective just where the box had been hidden. “Personally, I never go into the shed. It’s Johnny’s little cubby hutch,” he said. “The lad is fond of gardening, and, like you, Mr. Reeder, has a fancy for poultry.” “Is the shed kept locked?” “No, I’ve never seen it locked,” said old Southers. The place from which the box had been extracted was at the far end of the shed. It had been concealed behind a bag of chicken-seed. Mr. Reeder took a brief survey of the garden: it was an oblong strip of ground, measuring about a hundred yards by twenty. At the further end of the garden was a wall which marked the boundary of the garden which backed on to it. The garden could be approached either from the door leading to a small glass conservatory, or along a narrow gravel strip which ran down one side of the house. Ingress, however, was barred by a small door stretched across the narrow path. “But it’s seldom locked,” said Southers. “We leave it open for the milkman; he goes round to the kitchen that way in the morning.” Mr. Reeder went back to the garden and walked slowly along the gravel path which ran between two large flower-beds. At the farther end was a wired-in chicken run. Mr. Reeder surveyed the flower-beds meditatively.