“Well, that’s what I shrink from, Bill. It’s so horribly cold-blooded. Cayley may be capable of it, but I hate to think of it.”

“But, dash it all, your other way is cold-blooded enough. According to you, he goes up to the office and deliberately shoots a man with whom he has no quarrel, whom he hasn’t seen for fifteen years!”

“Yes, but to save his own neck. That makes a difference. My theory is that he quarrelled violently with Mark over the girl, and killed him in sudden passion. Anything that happened after that would be self-defense. I don’t mean that I excuse it, but that I understand it. And I think that Mark’s dead body is in the passage now, and has been there since, say, half-past two yesterday afternoon. And tonight Cayley is going to hide it in the pond.”

Bill pulled at the moss on the ground beside him, threw away a handful or two, and said slowly, “You may be right, but it’s all guesswork, you know.”

Antony laughed.