Harding next put the question to Ross: “Did you come back by car?” A motor would naturally suggest itself as the means by which he would return to town, and it will be remembered that, according to Ivy Matthews, he said he had come back by car. But that was a matter that could be tested, and the detectives had no doubt satisfied themselves by inquiry before this that Ross did not return by a car. So Harding makes him reply to the query by saying: “No, a bike.” “A motor bike?” asked Harding. “No, a push bike,” Ross is supposed to have replied. Harding probably knew that Ross had no bicycle of his own, or at least he guarded against that contingency by making Ross say that he knew a man who had a bike and knew where it was kept. The questions and answers which follow are specially notable as carrying on their face the mark of falsehood. Harding’s narrative at this point was—“I said, ‘Did you go straight into the Arcade?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘But the gates are locked there at night?’ He said, ‘Yes, but I have a key.’ I said, ‘When you went to the Arcade, did you go straight in and remove the body?’ He said, ‘No, I went in and took the girl’s clothes off and went out and walked around the block to see if there was anyone about.’” The stilted nature of the dialogue suggests at once that it is the invention of a crude fictionist. But it suggests a good deal more than that. How did Harding know, if he had not been told, that the gates were locked at that time? How did he know, if he had not been told, that a tenant in the ordinary course, would not have a key to the Arcade? That is the first thing that would suggest itself if Ross said that he went straight back to the Arcade. The walking round the block to see if there was anybody about is equally incredible, for there might be nobody about when Ross walked around the block on one occasion, and several about when he came out with the body two or three minutes later. The purpose of that unreal inquiry, and the others that follow was to get answers fitting in with the story told by the vigilant lodging-house keeper, Ellis. But Ellis, with all his vigilance, strangely enough never saw Ross enter the Arcade with a bicycle. How that part of the story not only does not fit in with Ellis’s, but violently conflicts with it, will be shown in a moment. A MODEL LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER.