“There wasn’t any other man. Listen, and I’ll show you how in the end I reconstructed the whole story. To begin with, Mr. Thesiger and Miss Wade are in this together. And they have a rendezvous for an exact time. Miss Wade comes over in her car, climbs through the fence and comes up to the house. She’s got a perfectly good story if anyone stops her⁠—the one she told eventually. But she arrived unmolested on the terrace just after the clock had struck two.

“Now, I may say to begin with that she was seen coming in. My men saw her, but they had orders to stop nobody coming in⁠—only going out. I wanted, you see, to find out as much as possible. Miss Wade arrives on the terrace, and at that minute a parcel falls at her feet and she picks it up. A man comes down the ivy and she starts to run. What happens next? The struggle⁠—and presently the revolver shots. What will everyone do? Rush to the scene of the fight. And Miss Loraine Wade could have left the grounds and driven off with the formula safely in her possession.