“He told us all that had happened.  When he got to Riversbrook he found lights burning on the ground floor.  He jumped over the fence at the side and hid in the garden.  He was there only a few minutes when he saw the lights go out.  Then the front door was slammed and a woman walked down the garden path to the gate.”

“A woman!” exclaimed Kemp.

“Yes, a woman.  Why not?  She had been to see Sir Horace.  One of his Society mistresses.  I’ll bet it was on her account that he came back from Scotland.”

“What time was this?” he asked with interest.

“About half-past ten,” replied the girl.

“And this woman—­this lady—­turned out the lights and closed the front door?”

“So Fred says.  Of course he thought Sir Horace had done it, but he found out later that Sir Horace was dead.”

“I can’t understand it,” said Kemp.  “What was she doing there?  If she found the man dead, why didn’t she inform the police?  No, wait a minute!  She’d be afraid to do that if she was a Society woman.”

“It might be her who killed him,” said the girl.

“Does Fred think that?” asked Kemp, looking at her closely.

“Fred doesn’t know what to think,” she replied.  “But it must have been this woman or Hill who killed him.  I feel sure myself that it was Hill.”

“This woman puzzles me,” said Kemp thoughtfully.  “She must have been a cool hand if she went round turning out the lights after finding his dead body.  About half-past ten, you said?”

“That is as near as Fred can make it.”

“Go on with your story,” he said.  “I’m interested in this.  You were saying that Fred saw the lights go out, and then this woman came out of the house and walked away.”

“Well, Fred got into the house through one of the windows at the side—­the one Hill had told him to try,” continued the girl.  “But first of all he waited about half an hour in the garden, so as to give Sir Horace time to go to sleep.  He was able to find his way about the house as Hill had given him a plan.  He felt his way upstairs and finding a door open he went into the room and flashed his electric torch.  By its light he saw Sir Horace Fewbanks lying huddled up in a corner with a big pool of blood beside him on the floor.  He felt him to see if he was dead.  The body was quite warm, but it was limp.  Sir Horace was dead.  Fred says he lost his nerve and ran for it as hard as he could.  He rushed down stairs and out of the house and got back to the flat as fast as he could.

“The three of us sat there shaking with fear and wondering what to do.  Hill was the first to recover himself.  In his cunning plausible way, he pointed out that it was altogether unlikely that suspicion would fall on Fred or him.  All we had to do was to keep quiet and say nothing; then we’d have no awkward questions put to us.  It was his suggestion that we should send an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard telling them Sir Horace had been