“Well, how else could he have got away? He didn’t go by the windows in the next room, because they were shut.”

“Isn’t that rather odd?”

“Well, I thought so at first, but⁠—” He pointed to the wall jutting out on the right. “You see, you’re protected from the rest of the house if you get out here, and you’re quite close to the shrubbery. If you go out at the French windows, I imagine you’re much more visible. All that part of the house⁠—” he waved his right hand⁠—“the west, well, northwest almost, where the kitchen parts are⁠—you see, you’re hidden from them here. Oh, yes! he knew the house, whoever it was, and he was quite right to come out of this window. He’d be into the shrubbery at once.”

Cayley looked at him thoughtfully.

“It seems to me, Mr. Gillingham, that you know the house pretty well, considering that this is the first time you’ve been to it.”