“A knock-out? Me?” Anthony laughed. “And I feel as futile as if I were Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a case of Lecoq’s.” He put a hand to his head. “There’s something about this room that’s haunting me! What is the damned thing? Boyd, there’s something _wrong_ about the blasted place, I tell you!” Boyd looked bewildered. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.” Then, to humour this eccentric, he added: “Ah! if only this furniture could tell us what it saw last night.” “I said that to the clock,” said Anthony morosely, Then suddenly: “The clock, the clock! Grandpa _did_ tell me something! I knew I’d seen or heard something that was utterly wrong, insane. The clock! Good God Almighty! What a fool not to think of it before!” Boyd became alarmed. His tone was soothing. “What about the clock, sir?” “It struck. D’you remember it beginning when you were taking the body away?” “Yes.” Boyd was all mystification. “What time was that?” “Why, eleven, of course, sir.” “Yes, it was, my uncanny Scot. But grandfather said twelve. I was thinking about something else. I must have counted the strokes unconsciously.” “But—but—are you _sure_ it struck twelve when”—Boyd glanced up at the old clock—“when it said eleven?” Anthony crossed the room, opened the glass casing of the clock-face, and moved the hands on fifteen minutes. They stood then at twelve. “Bong!” went the clock. They waited. It did not strike again. Anthony was triumphant. “There you are, Boyd! Grandpa looks twelve and says one. There’s another strand of that rope you’re making for the murderer. Miss Hoode came in here at eleven-ten, to find the murder done and the murderer gone. You’re time’s almost fixed for you. He wasn’t here at eleven-ten, but he was here after eleven, because, to put the striking of that clock out as it is, the murderer must have put back the hands after the hour—eleven, that is—had struck. If he’d done it before the striking had begun, grand-dad wouldn’t be telling lies the way he is.” Boyd’s expression was a mixture of elation and doubt. “I suppose that’s right, sir,” he said. “About the striking, I mean. Yes, of course it is; just for the moment I was a bit confused, so to speak. Couldn’t work out which way the mistake would come.”