“Yes. I go back to my room and I wait. I leave door open and soon I see gentleman come out of writing-room and go downstairs. Then I go in. I write my letters.” “Do you know when that was?” “I go back to writing-room a few minutes after I go back to my room. About eleven of the clock—it was then.” “And how long did you stay there?” “I stay there long time—what you call the three-quarters of hour, perhaps.” “And then you came back to your room?” “Yes. I come back here.” “You did not see the gentleman who was in the writing-room again.” “Yes, I see him. He come upstairs there, outside my door, just after I get back to my room.” “You left the door open then.” “Yes. There was no air. It is what you call stuffy here. I see him go into writing-room.” “And that was the last you saw of him?” “Yes. But he stay in hotel. I see him later—days later—often times.” “Then you would recognise him if you saw him. Is this he?” and Ellery passed a photograph of Carter Woodman to the Burmese. “Yes, that he.” And then the Burmese smiled blandly and added, “And now you tell me why you wish know this.” “I would rather not tell you just yet, Mr. Pu, if you will forgive me. All I can say is that what you have told me affects a man’s life.” “You not want to tell me, you not tell me. But you help me get interview with Mr. Bernard Shaw. I help you. You help me. See?” Ellery promised his good offices—for what they were worth. “And Mr. H. G. Wells?” Ellery again promised with rather more hesitation, to do what he could. “And Mr. Bennett?” This time Ellery, foreseeing further additions to the list, suggested that he should come back and have another talk with Mr. Pu in a day or two. He would certainly do anything possible to help him. “And Mr. Bertrand Russell?” the Burmese was saying, as Ellery managed to talk himself out of the room. Here at last, Ellery said to himself, as he left the hotel, was proof, proof positive, even all but certainty. Woodman had lied about his doings on Tuesday evening, and his _alibi_ was a fake. At the time when he had said that he was writing letters in the small writing-room he was really somewhere else. He had left the writing-room at a few minutes before eleven, and he had only returned to it, by the stairs which led directly to the basement, about three-quarters of an hour later. The inference was obvious—to Ellery at least. But his new certainty that Woodman was the criminal was still of course very far from complete demonstration. A man might lie about his movements, and still not be a murderer. What should the next step be? He would see Joan, and convince her now that his suspicions had been rightly directed. She could hardly still doubt. Chapter XXX A Letter and Its Consequences