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murdered.’”
    â€œThank you, thank you,” broke in Mr. M. at last. “A most orderly report of perfectly correct procedure, and the rest we know.”
    â€œThank you, Jane,” added the house inspector, and she actually took their hint, thinking perhaps this was as fine an exit line as she could manage.
    After she had passed through the door with a conscious sense of finish, we followed into the dining room where, too, she left us to ourselves. As that door closed, Mr. Mycroft remarked with a certain challenge in his voice, “A good case. It’s murder as far as any jury or most judges would see, isn’t it?”
    â€œSo I thought,” replied the inspector. “And the further steps seemed at first to confirm all we’ve heard. First I went into the lane—I was down here within a few hours. The lane behind that wall is a very quiet place where tramps would naturally doss and doze the day off. Well, one of them, we presume, is there. He notices the door is ajar. He slips through and sees Sankey sitting, perhaps dozing, with his back to the door. He steals up the grass path, as he is hidden from the house, to see if he can snitch anything—watch, cigarette case, etc. As he’s quietly turning over the things on the stone table by Sankey, Sankey stirs. Tramp snatches up the first thing, the paper knife. Sankey would stretch out his left arm to seize intruder, who almost involuntarily would strike down at Sankey’s left breast and give him a heart stab, after which he would bolt quietly. I’ll come to the marks on the hilt in a moment, but meanwhile the whole of that theory had been rammed fast and sunk by an awkward fact. When I came to the garden door I found … well, come, and I’ll show you.”
    We went down the little grass walk to the green door. Mr. M. and our guide dropped on their knees as though at a shrine. I bent in he background, as it ruins trousers to kneel. But I could see and understand, as our guide said, “You see, there is a silt of shriveled blossom petals and small leaves packed in with light mud, splashed and pelted on by the last heavy shower. There has been no heavy rain here for ten days. That door has not been opened for that time, at the least.”
    The argument was conclusive and I saw Mr. M. nod.
    He added, though, “But she heard it?”
    â€œYes,” replied the other, “I can show you what she thought she heard, now you two are witnesses that the door has not been opened for a considerable time and could not have been opened on that day.”
    With this he stood up and, taking a key from his pocket, put it into the lock. With a wrench it gave, and with another wrench he pulled the door open, which, as though in protest, made an angry twang. We all looked up. At the top it was fitted with one of those old-fashioned hasps rather like giant jew’s-harps, with which old doors used to be fitted to make them, when they slammed, stay shut.
    â€œSo that’s what Jane heard?” remarked Mr. M.
    â€œWhat she imagined she heard,” he was corrected.
    â€œAh, but then why did she look up? What roused her attention at all?”
    â€œBecause in fact she really first saw , and then, having mistaken what she did see, she invented, or should I say deduced, the appropriate sound to confirm her misinterpreted visual impression.”
    And to prove this intriguing theory, our guide began to lead us back to the dining room. But I could have told him that Mr. M. was as easy to lead as Jane was to keep to a point. I smiled as I saw the older detective snatch at a straw of distraction, for Mr. M. is one of those who believes that at least in information it is better to give than to receive. We had hardly turned from the door when he stopped, and then, making off along the side of the garden wall, called out, “Just a moment. One more confirmation of our fully documented narrative.” We waited while