“It appears from her story that on the night of the Hunt Ball held here she had been paying a visit to some friends at Rapscot, a village, as you know, about a mile beyond Wynford.  On her way back to the town, for which she started at about 9.45, she took as a short cut the right-of-way path running across the park and passing near the house.  As she went by she was naturally attracted by the lighted windows and could hear the band quite plainly.  She stopped to listen to the music at a point which she has indicated, almost directly opposite the tower.

“She says she had stood there for some little time when her attention was suddenly diverted to what seemed a mysterious movement on the outside of the tower.  A dark body, presumably a human being, appeared to be slowly sliding down the wall from the topmost window.  Unfortunately before she could quite realize what she was looking at—­and we may imagine that a country girl would take some little time to grasp so unusual a situation—­a cloud drifted across the moon and threw the tower into shadow.

“The girl continued, however, to keep her eyes fixed on the spot where she had seen the dark object descending, with the result that in a few seconds she saw it reach and pass over one side of the window of the lower room which was sufficiently lighted up to silhouette anything placed before it.  She saw the object move slowly over the window and disappear in the darkness beneath it.  When, a few seconds later, the moon came out again nothing more was to be seen.

“The girl stayed for some time watching the tower, but without result.  She is a more or less ignorant, unsophisticated country-woman, and what she had seen she was quite unable to account for.  Naturally she hardly connected it with any sort of tragical occurrence.  The house with its lights and music seemed given over to gaiety; that any one should just then have met his death in that upper room never entered her imagination.  A vague idea that a thief might have got into the house and she had seen him escape by the tower window did indeed, as she says, cross her mind, and that supposition prevented her from approaching the tower to satisfy her curiosity.  But as nothing more happened she began to think less of the significance of what she had seen, in fact almost persuaded herself that it had been something of an optical delusion.  Presently, having had enough of standing in the cold wind, she resumed her way, went home and to bed, and early next morning left the town to enter a situation in another part of the country.

“It appears that she had taken cold by her loitering and soon after reaching her destination became so ill that she had to keep her bed, and it was only on her recovery a few days ago that she heard what had happened here that night.  Directly she could get away she came over and told her story to us.”

“A pity she could not have come before,” Morriston remarked as the chief constable paused.  “Her evidence is highly important, disposing as it does of the mystery of the locked door.”