"We can easily suppose that Marston would be clever enough to arrange to meet Arkwright Jones, without arousing suspicion. We do know that soon after he finally quarrelled with Janet Smith he walked over to Kurtmoor; the two witnesses who spoke with him stated that they met him whilst they themselves were walking to Broxmouth. It was then past eight o'clock. Arkwright Jones had either dined at his hotel or not; we do not know, for it never struck the police to inquire at once how the popular General had spent his time on that fateful evening. You know what those unconventional seaside places are: people spend most of their time out of doors, and there would be nothing strange, let alone suspicious, in any visitor going out for an hour after dinner, even if it rained. "Then surely you can in your mind see those two scoundrels putting their villainous heads together, and as suspicion of any foul play would of necessity at once fall on Marston, Jones decided to take the hideous onus on himself. He went to the Dog's Tooth Cliff to meet Janet Smith himself, and borrowed Marston's stick to aid him in his abominable deed. He was clever enough, however, to throw it over the edge of the cliff some distance away from the scene of his crime. We do not know, of course, whether the poor girl recognised him, or whether he just fell on her in the dark; she gave only one scream before she fell. "They were clever scoundrels, we must admit, but chance favoured them, too, especially in one thing: she favoured them when she prompted Arkwright Jones to put a muffler round his throat. This one fact, as you know, saved Marston's neck from the gallows, but for the strands of wool in the girl's hatpin, and Hoggs's brief view of a man manipulating a muffler, nothing but Jones's own confession could have saved his accomplice. Whether he would have confessed remains a riddle which no one will ever solve. But as to the whole so-called mystery, I saw daylight through it the moment I realised that Marston's despair and humiliation during the inquest was a pretence. If he feigned despair it was because he desired _temporarily_ to be the victim of circumstantial evidence. From that point to the unravelling of the tangled skein was but a step for a mind bent on logic." "But," I argued, for indeed I was bewildered, and really incredulous, "what will be the end of it all? Surely three scoundrels like that will not go scot free. There will be an enquiry into the affairs of the Institute: the governors----" "The governors have talked of an inquiry," the funny creature broke in, with a chuckle, "but if you had any experience of these private charities, you would know that the first thing their administrators wish to avoid is publicity. The President of the Woodforde Institute had sufficient influence on the committee you may be sure to stifle any suggestion of creating public scandal by any sort of enquiry."