“You never said anything about them” complained Bill.

“I only saw them afterwards.  I was looking for the collar, you remember.  They came back to me afterwards; I knew how Cayley would feel about it ....  Poor devil!”

“Go on,” said Bill.

“Well, then, we had the inquest, and of course I noticed, and I suppose you did too, the curious fact that Robert had asked his way at the second lodge and not at the first.  So I talked to Amos and Parsons.  That made it more curious.  Amos told me that Robert had gone out of his way to speak to him; had called to him, in fact.  Parsons told me that his wife was out in their little garden at the first lodge all the afternoon, and was certain that Robert had never come past it.  He also told me that Cayley had put him on to a job on the front lawn that afternoon.  So I had another guess.  Robert had used the secret passage—­the passage which comes out into the park between the first and second lodges.  Robert, then, had been in the house; it was a put-up job between Robert and Cayley.  But how could Robert be there without Mark knowing?  Obviously, Mark knew too.  What did it all mean?”

“When was this?” interrupted Bill.  “Just after the inquest—­after you’d seen Amos and Parsons, of course?”

“Yes.  I got up and left them, and came to look for you.  I’d got back to the clothes then.  Why did Mark change his clothes so secretly?  Disguise?  But then what about his face?  That was much more important than clothes.  His face, his beard—­he’d have to shave off his beard—­and then—­oh, idiot!  I saw you looking at that poster.  Mark acting, Mark made-up, Mark disguised.  Oh, priceless idiot!  Mark was Robert ....  Matches, please.”

Bill passed over the matches again, waited till Antony had relit his pipe, and then held out his hand for them, just as they were going into the other’s pocket.

“Yes,” said Bill thoughtfully.  “Yes ....  But wait a moment.  What about the ’Plough and Horses’?” Antony looked comically at him.

“You’ll never forgive me, Bill,” he said.  “You’ll never come clue-hunting with me again.”

“What do you mean?”

Antony sighed.

“It was a fake, Watson.  I wanted you out of the way.  I wanted to be alone.  I’d guessed at my x, and I wanted to test it—­to test it every way, by everything we’d discovered.  I simply had to be alone just then.  So—­” he smiled and added, “Well, I knew you wanted a drink.”

“You are a devil,” said Bill, staring at him.  “And your interest when I told you that a woman had been staying there—­”

“Well, it was only polite to be interested when you’d taken so much trouble.”

“You brute!  You—­you Sherlock!  And then you keep trying to steal my matches.  Well, go on.”

“That’s all.  My x fitted.”

“Did you guess Miss Norris and all that?”

“Well, not quite.  I didn’t realize that Cayley had worked for it from the beginning—­had put Miss Norris up to frightening Mark.  I thought he’d just seized the opportunity.”