“Bad luck, Bill,” he said sympathetically. “There’s only one murder, after all. I’m awfully sorry about it. It was my fault for—” “Shut up, you ass. You know I didn’t mean that.” “Well, you seemed awfully disappointed.” Bill said nothing for a little, and then with a sudden laugh confessed. “It was so exciting yesterday,” he said apologetically, “and we seemed to be just getting there, and discovering the most wonderful things, and now—” “And now?” “Well, it’s so much more ordinary.” Antony gave a shout of laughter. “Ordinary!” he cried. “Ordinary! Well, I’m dashed! Ordinary! If only _one_ thing would happen in an ordinary way, we might do something, but _everything_ is ridiculous.” Bill brightened up again. “Ridiculous? How?” “Every way. Take those ridiculous clothes we found last night. You can explain the brown suit, but why the under clothes. You can explain the underclothes in some absurd way, if you like—you can say that Mark always changed his underclothes whenever he interviewed anybody from Australia—but why, in that case, my dear Watson, _why_ didn’t he change his collar?” “His collar?” said Bill in amazement. “His collar, Watson.” “I don’t understand.” “And it’s all so ordinary,” scoffed Antony. “Sorry, Tony, I didn’t mean that. Tell me about the collar.” “Well, that’s all. There was no collar in the bag last night. Shirt, socks, tie—everything except a collar. Why?” “Was that what you were looking for in the cupboard?” said Bill eagerly. “Of course. ‘Why no collar?’ I said. For some reason Cayley considered it necessary to hide all Mark’s clothes; not just the suit, but everything which he was wearing, or supposed to be wearing, at the time of the murder. But he hadn’t hidden the collar. Why? Had he left it out by mistake? So I looked in the cupboard. It wasn’t there. Had he left it out on purpose? If so, why?—and where was it? Naturally I began to say to myself, ‘Where have I seen a collar lately? A collar all by itself?’ And I remembered—what, Bill?” Bill frowned heavily to himself, and shook his head. “Don’t ask me, Tony. I can’t—By Jove!” He threw up his head, “In the basket in the office bedroom!” “Exactly.” “But is that the one?” “The one that goes with the rest of the clothes? I don’t know. Where else can it be? But if so, why send the collar quite casually to the wash in the ordinary way, and take immense trouble to hide everything else? Why, why, why?” Bill bit hard at his pipe, but could think of nothing to say. “Anyhow,” said Antony, getting up restlessly, “I’m certain of one thing. Mark knew on the Monday that Robert was coming here.” CHAPTER XIX. The Inquest