Bill frowned heavily to himself, and shook his head.

“Don’t ask me, Tony.  I can’t—­By Jove!” He threw up his head, “In the basket in the office bedroom!”

“Exactly.”

“But is that the one?”

“The one that goes with the rest of the clothes?  I don’t know.  Where else can it be?  But if so, why send the collar quite casually to the wash in the ordinary way, and take immense trouble to hide everything else?  Why, why, why?”

Bill bit hard at his pipe, but could think of nothing to say.

“Anyhow,” said Antony, getting up restlessly, “I’m certain of one thing.  Mark knew on the Monday that Robert was coming here.”

CHAPTER XIX

The Inquest

The Coroner, having made a few commonplace remarks as to the terrible nature of the tragedy which they had come to investigate that afternoon, proceeded to outline the case to the jury.  Witnesses would be called to identify the deceased as Robert Ablett, the brother of the owner of the Red House, Mark Ablett.  It would be shown that he was something of a ne’er-do-well, who had spent most of his life in Australia, and that he had announced, in what might almost be called a threatening letter, his intention of visiting his brother that afternoon.  There would be evidence of his arrival, of his being shown into the scene of the tragedy—­a room in the Red House, commonly called “the office”—­and of his brother’s entrance into that room.  The jury would have to form their own opinion as to what happened there.  But whatever happened, happened almost instantaneously.  Within two minutes of Mark Ablett’s entrance, as would be shown in the evidence, a shot was heard, and when—­perhaps five minutes later—­the room was forced open, the dead body of Robert Ablett was found stretched upon the floor.  As regards Mark Ablett, nobody had seen him from the moment of his going into the room, but evidence would be called to show that he had enough money on him at the time to take him to any other part of the country, and that a man answering to his description had been observed on the platform of Stanton station, apparently waiting to catch the 3.55 up train to London.  As the jury would realize, such evidence of identity was not always reliable.  Missing men had a way of being seen in a dozen different places at once.  In any case, there was no doubt that for the moment Mark Ablett had disappeared.

“Seems a sound man,” whispered Antony to Bill.  “Doesn’t talk too much.”

Antony did not expect to learn much from the evidence—­he knew the facts of the case so well by now—­but he wondered if Inspector Birch had developed any new theories.  If so, they would appear in the Coroner’s examination, for the Coroner would certainly have been coached by the police as to the important facts to be extracted from each witness.  Bill was the first to be put through it.