O'Connor began again: “Was the crime, for of course you think it was a crime, you hope it was one, you sin-hardened man-hunter, was it _meant_ to be discovered by Beale, or . . . by someone else? Was Eames' body placed in that locked wardrobe so that the wrong person shouldn't find it, or so that the right person should?” O'Connor had given up all pretence at working and tried to read the answers to his conundrums one by one on Pointer's face, who finally answered a little wearily: “Only time can tell, but as I said last night, frankly I'm puzzled as to what Mr. Beale with his position—for as I said I haven't a doubt but that he's all he claims to be—and his dollars are doing in this business of a shabbily-dressed young man who puts up in a single room at the Enterprise. Miller found out to-day that Mr. Beale didn't make any inquiries for rooms at the smarter hotels, but only applied in Southampton Row.” “Had he tried the Marvel?” “No, he seems to've worked from the other end.” “Look here, you don't suspect him of being the actual murderer, do you?” O'Connor asked guilelessly. Pointer pursed his lips. “Not the kind of man to do that sort of thing himself, I should judge, yet the way the job was done”—he trailed off into silence. “Supposing it was he, and not Sikes, who was at the hotel earlier in the day, why should he come back in the evening? D'ye suppose he thought of those finger-prints of his which he had left everywhere, and wanted to have a chance to make them openly, as it were?” Judging by the detective's face he thought but poorly of this suggestion. “You say the smaller footmarks, those on the canvas and on the doorstep about fitted Beale's slippers, didn't you?” persisted the other. “As far as size goes—yes. Mr. Beale _could_ have—though it would seem a mad risk to take—still he _could_ have gone back upstairs again, when he left us last night in No. 14, and got out on to the balcony through the landing-window. But to get out with an umbrella and a raincoat would have been a feat he didn't look up to, though you never can tell. When I saw him a little later in the manager's room he certainly hadn't been clambering about in the rain.” “Well, his departure looks to me very fishy,” maintained O'Connor in a tone which suggested that Pointer had steadily upheld it as a proof of the absent man's innocence. “What made him bolt out of the window?” “I think he saw Cox pass by and recognised him.” “Suppose he and the manager are in it together? It was the manager who put Beale into No. 14. Perhaps Beale knew it was empty and the inquiries at the other hotels were only a blind.” The Irishman revelled in these talks early in a case, when there were not sufficient facts to hamper his idle fancy in its flights. “Ah, as for the manager—” Pointer walked up and down the room. “That bit of acting about that green and white striped paper was badly enough done.” “So badly that it was creditable to him, eh?”