“You will find the two aces missing from this pack. You would have also found that two cards had been stuck together. Blood does that. No finger-prints. I should imagine the cards were sorted over after the untimely demise of Mr. Wentford, and the two significant aces extracted and exhibited.” The inspector made a very careful search of the bedroom and came back to find Mr. Reeder nodding himself to sleep. “What did they do to the girl--these local blokes?” asked Gaylor coarsely. Reeder’s right shoulder came up in a lazy shrug. “They escorted her to the station and took a statement from her. The inspector was kind enough to furnish me with a copy--you will find it on this table. They also examined her hands and her clothes, but it was quite unnecessary. There is corroborative evidence that she arrived at Bourne End station at twelve minutes past eight as she says she did--the murder was committed at forty minutes past seven, a few minutes before or after.” “How the dickens do you know that?” asked the astonished officer. “Is there any proof?” Mr. Reeder shook his head. “A romantic surmise.” He sighed heavily. “You have to realize, my dear Gaylor, that I have a criminal mind. I see the worst in people and the worst in every human action. It is very tragic. There are moments when”--he sighed again. “Forty minutes past seven,” he said simply. “That is my romantic surmise. The doctor will probably confirm my view. The body lay here,” he pointed to the hearthrug, “until--well, quite a considerable time.” Gaylor was skimming two closely written sheets of foolscap. Suddenly he stopped. “You’re wrong,” he said. “Listen to this statement made at the station by Miss Lynn. ‘I rang up my uncle from the station, telling him I might be late because of the snowy road. He answered “Come as soon as you can.” He spoke in a very low tone; I thought he sounded agitated!’ That knocks your theory about the time a little bit skew-wiff, eh?” Mr. Reeder looked round and blinked open his eyes. “Yes, doesn’t it? It must have been terribly embarrassing.” “What was embarrassing?” asked the puzzled police officer. “Everything,” mumbled Mr. Reeder, his chin falling on his breast. CHAPTER V (“The trouble about Reeder,” said Gaylor to the superintendent in the course of a long telephone conversation, “is that you feel he does know something which he shouldn’t know. I’ve never seen him in a case where he hasn’t given me the impression that he was the guilty party--he knew so much about the crime?” “Humour him,” said the superintendent. “He’ll be in the Public Prosecutor’s Department one of these days. He never was in a case that he didn’t make himself an accessory by pinching half the clues.”) At five o’clock the detective shook the sleeper awake. “You’d better go home, old man,” he said. “We’ll leave an officer in charge here.” Mr. Reeder rose with a groan, splashed some soda-water from a syphon into a glass and drank it.