“Good God!” exclaimed Ponting. “What a horrible thing! But,” he added after a pause, “I can’t believe she did it herself, and I don’t. Why should she commit suicide? She was quite happy, and she was just going to be married to that mealy-faced parson. And a razor, too! How do you suppose she came by a razor? Women don’t shave. They smoke and drink and swear, but they haven’t taken to shaving yet. I don’t believe it. Do you?” He glared ferociously at the superintendent, who replied: “I am not sure that I do. There’s a good deal in what you’ve just said, and the same objections had occurred to us. But, you see, if she didn’t do it herself, someone else must have done it, and we should like to find out who that someone is. So we begin by ascertaining where any possible persons may have been at a quarter to nine this evening.” Ponting smiled like an infuriated cat. “So you think me a possible person, do you?” said he. “Everyone is a possible person,” Miller replied blandly, “especially when he is known to have uttered threats.” The reply sobered Ponting considerably. For a few moments he sat, looking reflectively at the superintendent; then, in comparatively quiet tones, he said: “I have been working here since six o’clock. You can see the stuff for yourself, and I can prove that it has been written since six.” The superintendent nodded, but made no comment, and Ponting gazed at him fixedly, evidently thinking hard. Suddenly he broke into a harsh laugh. “What is the joke?” Miller inquired stolidly. “The joke is that I have got another alibi--a very complete one. There are compensations in every evil. I told you I had been interrupted in my work already this evening. It was those fools next door, the Barnetts--cousins of mine. They are musicians, save the mark! Variety stage, you know. Funny songs and jokes for mental defectives. Well, they practise their infernal ditties in their rooms, and the row comes into mine, and an accursed nuisance it is. However, they have agreed not to practise on Thursdays and Fridays--my busy nights--and usually they don’t. But to-night, just as I was in the thick of my writing, I suddenly heard the most unholy din; that idiot, Fred Barnett, bawling one of his imbecile songs--‘When the pigs their wings have folded,’ and balderdash of that sort--and the other donkey accompanying him on the clarinet, if you please! I stuck it for a minute or two. Then I rushed round to their flat and raised Cain with the bell and knocker. Mrs. Fred opened the door, and I told her what I thought of it. Of course she was very apologetic, said they had forgotten that it was Thursday and promised that she would make her husband stop. And I suppose she did, for by the time I got back to my rooms the row had ceased. I could have punched the whole lot of them into a jelly, but it was all for the best as it turns out.” “What time was it when you went round there?” asked Miller.