“I was thinking over our ideas last night in bed, and I see that it’s all a wash-out. The thing doesn’t work.” “Doesn’t work?” “No, there are two snags which seem to me hopeless. Look here, if Brotherhood was chucked off the 4.50 from Paston Oatvile, one can understand why Davenant should have got the wind up. He may have seen the thing happen; or he may have seen Brotherhood get in at Oatvile and found he wasn’t in the train when it got to Whitchurch—that might make him think there was something wrong, even if he’d really nothing to do with it. But if Davenant came back on the 4.50, and Brotherhood had been chucked off the earlier train, how did Davenant know anything about it? He would hear nothing, till he heard that we had found a dead body on the lines, and even then we weren’t certain till next day whose body it was. Why did Davenant disappear, in that case, and hide in a very uncomfortable passage?” “I thought of that. But you forget, Davenant was just coming back from an interview with Miss Rendall-Smith. He had probably seen her off on the three o’clock, and seen Brotherhood get into it. He comes down to the Hatcheries with the definite idea of remonstrating with Brotherhood; his first act, therefore, is to call at Brotherhood’s house, and ask for him. He gathers, in the course of Mrs. Bramston’s opening address, that Brotherhood has never turned up at all. Clearly, then, Brotherhood has either committed suicide or (more probably) vanished. In either case he has disappeared, and Davenant is afraid that he himself or (worse) Miss Rendall-Smith may be involved in the inquiry. It may be all right, of course, but there is danger. So he hits upon a very ingenious plan—going back to the secret passage in which he played as a child, and overhearing, as one does overhear in the Club, all the local gossip. Safe from observation, he can form his conclusions and mature his plans. He lies low until the moment at which he realizes that Miss Rendall-Smith is involved in the inquiry; and then by two incautious actions he gives himself away.” “Well, I suppose all that’s possible. But here’s the other snag, which is even worse: that copy of Momerie’s _Immortality_, with the marks at the side which clearly betrayed Brotherhood’s ownership, was found at Paston Oatvile in the 3.47 from London. Now, how did Brotherhood manage to leave his book in the 3.47 if he didn’t travel in it?” “That’s true. But mightn’t it be a blind? Remember, we’re dealing with an extraordinarily clever criminal. He faked the ticket; he faked the watches; he faked the sleeper-coupon: mayn’t he have managed to fake Brotherhood’s train-literature as well?” “We’re dealing with a clever man, but not with one who’s clever enough to come up here by the three o’clock, simultaneously leaving a book lying about in the 3.47.”