“Steady,” he whispered, “look there ... in the doorway ... there’s somebody moving ... quick, the torch!” The light flashed across the room, blazed for an instant on a window-pane, then picked out a man’s form swaying in the doorway. He had his back to the room and was rocking gently to and fro with the wind which they felt cold on their faces. “It’s only a coat and trousers hanging in the door ...” began Robin. Then, with a suddenness which pained the eyes, the room was flooded with light. The Dutch detective stepped from the electric light switch and moved to the open door. “Too laite!” he cried, shaking his head; “have I not tell you?” Suspended by a strip of coloured stuff, the body of Mr. Jeekes dangled from the cross-beam of the door. The corpse oscillated in the breeze, silhouetted against an oblong of black sky, turning this way and that, loose, unnatural, horrible, and, as the body, twisting gently, faced the room, it gave a glimpse of startling eyes, swollen, empurpled features, protruding tongue. Without the least trace of emotion the black-bearded detective picked up a rush-bottom chair and gathering up the corpse by its collar hoisted it up without an effort so that the feet rested on the chair. Then, producing a clasp-knife, he mounted the chair and, with a vigorous slash, cut the coloured strip which had been fastened to a staple projecting from the brickwork above the door on the outside of the house. He caught the body in his arms and laid it face upwards on the matting which covered the floor. He busied himself for an instant at the neck, then rose with a twisted strip of coloured material in his hand. “His braces,” he remarked, “very common. The stool what he has stood upon and knocked avay, she lies outsaide! My vriends, ve are too laite!” The doctor, fetched in haste by Manderton, examined the body. The man had been dead, he said, for several hours. Mary remained in the hall with Manderton while Robin and the Dutch detective went over the house. There was no trace either of Marbran or of the chauffeur. In the two bedrooms which showed signs of occupation the beds had been made up, but the ward-robes were empty. “Marbran’s made a bolt for it,” said Robin, coming into the office where he had left the Chief, “and taken everything with him ...” “I gathered as much,” answered that astute gentleman, pointing at the fireplace. A pile of charred paper filled the grate. “There’s nothing here, and I think we can wipe Mr. Victor Marbran off the slate. I doubt if we shall see him again. At any rate we can leave him to the tender mercies of our black-bearded friend here. As for us, I don’t really see that there is anything more to detain us here ...” “But,” remarked Robin, looking at the still figure on the floor, the face now mercifully covered by the doctor’s white handkerchief, “surely this is a confession of guilt. Has he left nothing behind in writing? No account of the crime?”