“But, look here, the thing’s impossible! Marryatt, I mean, Marryatt isn’t the least the sort of person——” “Yes, I know all that. I’ve thought of all that. But just look at the facts. There’s not the least doubt it was Marryatt who came into my room, yesterday afternoon, I suppose. He came in, no doubt, for the pipe-cleaner or for the Shakespeare quotation—I don’t grudge him either. Then he must have seen the Momerie on the shelf, and I suppose couldn’t help taking it; he didn’t feel safe as long as the thing was in my hands. He is, of course, just the height Carmichael mentioned; he does smoke Worker’s Army Cut; his pipes always are foul.” “Yes, but he may have wanted the Momerie for anything.” “Why did he never tell me he’d taken it? Look here, you’ve got to face the facts. Let me marshal them for you; you can imagine I’ve been thinking them out pretty furiously. First, Marryatt had a reason for disliking Brotherhood.” “For disliking him, yes; but not for wanting to murder him.” “Of course to you and me it wouldn’t seem so; we don’t know the clerical temper from the inside. After all, Marryatt has a hard time of it in any case, trying to knock a little piety out of these villagers. What must he think of the man who comes and tries to take away what beliefs they’ve got?” “All right, go on. Of course, it’s quite impossible.” “Next point: it was Marryatt who gave Brotherhood that Momerie book. Brotherhood, of course, took it up to London with him in the train on Monday, but is it likely that anybody would notice it particularly? The one man who knew for certain that it was in his possession was the man who had given it to him.” “But did Marryatt know anything about Brotherhood’s connection with Miss Rendall-Smith—about his promise to her?” “We’ll come to that presently. It doesn’t arise yet, if you consider the actual wording of the cipher-message. What it said was, ‘You will perish if you go back upon your _faith_’—I now read that as a purely theological message, and I know of only one man in the neighbourhood who would have been likely to send such a message.” “You seem to be pressing words rather far.” “Next point: Marryatt did travel by the three o’clock train on Tuesday. He made no secret of the fact; he told us about it—why? Precisely because he had arranged the murder so as to look as if it was connected with the 3.47: the three o’clock train was his alibi, and he was determined to get his alibi well rubbed in. Don’t you remember, just before we found the body, the discussion we all had in the smoking-room about crime, and how Marryatt said it was very important for the criminal to behave naturally in company, so as to establish his alibi? Well, that’s what he was doing at the moment.” “I’d forgotten his saying that.”