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Laura whispered.
    â€˜Then go along and do your stuff,’ he ordered her.
    Laura hesitated. ‘You–you oughtn’t to do this,’ she urged him again. ‘You oughtn’t. You shouldn’t get involved.’
    â€˜Now, don’t let’s have any more of that,’ Starkwedder insisted. ‘Everyone has their own form of–what did we call it just now?–fun and games. You had your fun and games shooting your husband. I’m having my fun and games now. Let’s just say I’ve always had a secret longing to see how I could get on with a detective story in real life.’ He gave her a quick, reassuring smile. ‘Now, can you do what I’ve told you?’
    Laura nodded. ‘Yes.’
    â€˜Right. Oh, I see you’ve got a watch. Good. What time do you make it?’
    Laura showed him her wristwatch, and he set his accordingly. ‘Just after ten minutes to,’ he observed. ‘I’ll allow you three–no, four–minutes. Four minutes to go along to the kitchen, pop that paper in the boiler, go upstairs, get out of your things and into a dressing-gown, and along to Miss Bennett or whoever.Do you think you can do that, Laura?’ He smiled at her reassuringly.
    Laura nodded.
    â€˜Now then,’ he continued, ‘at five minutes to midnight exactly, you’ll hear the shot. Off you go.’
    Moving to the door, she turned and looked at him, uncertain of herself. Starkwedder went across to open the door for her. ‘You’re not going to let me down, are you?’ he asked.
    â€˜No,’ replied Laura faintly.
    â€˜Good.’
    Laura was about to leave the room when Starkwedder noticed her jacket lying on the arm of the sofa. Calling her back, he gave it to her, smiling. She went out, and he closed the door behind her.

Chapter 5
    After closing the door behind Laura, Starkwedder paused, working out in his mind what was to be done. After a moment, he glanced at his watch, then took out a cigarette. He moved to the table by the armchair and was about to pick up the lighter when he noticed a photograph of Laura on one of the bookshelves. He picked it up, looked at it, smiled, replaced it, and lit a cigarette, leaving the lighter on the table. Taking out his handkerchief, he rubbed any fingerprints off the arms of the armchair and the photograph, and then pushed the chair back to its original position. He took Laura’s cigarette from the ashtray, then went to the table by the wheelchair and took his own stub from the ashtray. Crossing to the desk, he next rubbed any fingerprints from it, replaced the scissors and notepad, and adjusted the blotter. He looked around him on the floor for any scrap of paper that might have been missed, found onenear the desk, screwed it up and put it in his trousers pocket. He rubbed fingerprints off the light switch by the door and off the desk chair, picked up his torch from the desk, went over to the french windows, drew the curtain back slightly, and shone the torch through the window onto the path outside.
    â€˜Too hard for footprints,’ he murmured to himself. He put the torch on the table by the wheelchair and picked up the gun. Making sure that it was sufficiently loaded, he polished it for fingerprints, then went to the stool and put the gun down on it. After glancing again at his watch, he went to the armchair in the recess and put on his hat, scarf and gloves. With his overcoat on his arm, he crossed to the door. He was about to switch off the lights when he remembered to remove the fingerprints from the door-plate and handle. He then switched off the lights, and came back to the stool, putting his coat on. He picked up the gun, and was about to fire it at the initials on the wall when he realized that they were hidden by the curtain.
    â€˜Damn!’ he muttered. Quickly taking the desk chair, he used it to hold the curtain back. He returned to his position by the stool, fired the gun,