Suddenly a faint muffled cry sounded from inside the house, and almost immediately afterwards the front door opened and James Reilly came rushing down the steps. His face was white and twisted, and his eyes glared in front of him unseeingly. He staggered like a drunken man.
He passed Tommy and Tuppence as though he did not see them, muttering to himself with a kind of dreadful repetition.
“My God! My God! Oh, my God!”
He clutched at the gate post, as though to steady himself, and then, as though animated by sudden panic, he raced off down the road as hard as he could go in the opposite direction to that taken by the policeman.