"Then the instinct of self-preservation is roused. Oh, the man was cleverer than he was given credit for! He remembers with satisfaction locking Ida Griggs's door from the outside; and now to give the horrible accident the appearance of ordinary burglary! He locks his mother's door on the inside, switches out the light, then throws open the window. For a youngish man who is active and athletic the drop from a first floor window, with the aid of a creeper on the wall, presents but little difficulty, and when a man is faced with a deadly peril, minor dangers do not deter him. "Fortunately, everything has occurred before he has bolted and barred the downstairs door for the night. This, of course, greatly facilitates matters. He lets himself down through the window, jumps down into the yard, lets himself into the house through the back door, then closes up everything, and quietly goes upstairs to bed. "There has not been much noise, even his mother's fall was practically soundless, and--poor thing!--she had not the time to scream; the only sound was the opening of the window; it certainly would not bring Ida Griggs out of her bed--girls of her class are more likely to smother their heads under their bedclothes if any alarming noise is heard. And so the unfortunate man is able to sneak up to his room unseen and unheard. "Whoever would dream of casting suspicion on him? "He was never mixed up in any quarrel with his mother, and he had nothing much to gain by her death. At the inquest every one was sorry for him; but I could not repress a feeling of admiration for the coolness and cleverness with which he obliterated every trace of his crime. I imagine him carefully wiping his boots before he went upstairs, and brushing and folding up his clothes before he went to bed. Cannot you? "A clever criminal, what?" the whimsical creature concluded, as he put his piece of string in the pocket of his funny tweed coat. "Think of it--you will see that I am right. As you say, Mrs. Levison did not strangle herself, and a burglar from the outside could not have vanished into thin air." VI THE MYSTERY OF THE DOG'S TOOTH CLIFF The Old Man in the Corner was more than usually loquacious that day: he had a great deal to say on the subject of the strictures which a learned judge levelled against the police in a recent murder case. "Well deserved," he concluded, with his usual self-opinionated emphasis, "but not more so in this case than in many others, where blunder after blunder is committed and the time of the courts wasted without either judge or magistrate, let alone the police, knowing where the hitch lies." "Of course, _you_ always know," I remarked dryly.