“Would you like to see the bedroom?” asked Juliet sarcastically.  “I see you are examining the place, though I should have thought you would have done so before.”

“I did at the time,” replied Jennings calmly, “but the place was then full of furniture and the carpets were down.  Let me see the bedroom by all means.”

Juliet led the way into the next room, which was also bare.  There was one window hermetically sealed and with iron shutters.  This looked out on to a kind of well, and light was reflected from above by means of a sheet of silvered tin.  No one could have got out by the window, and even then, it would have been difficult to have climbed up the well which led to the surface of the ground.  The floor and walls had no marks of entrances, and Jennings returned to the sitting-room completely baffled.  Then Juliet spoke again.  “I cannot help wondering what you expect to find,” she observed.

“I thought there might be a secret entrance,” said Jennings, looking at her keenly, “but there seems to be none.”

Miss Saxon appeared genuinely astonished and looked round.  “I never heard of such a thing,” she said, puzzled.  “And what would a quiet old lady like my aunt need with a secret entrance?”

“Well, you see, the assassin could not have sounded that bell and have escaped by the front door.  Had he done so, he would have met Susan Grant answering the call.  Therefore, he must have escaped in some other way.  The windows of both rooms are out of the question.”

“Yes.  But I understood that the assassin escaped at half-past ten.”

“According to the evidence it looks like that.  But who then sounded the bell?”

Juliet shook her head.  “I can’t say,” she said with a sigh.  “The whole case is a mystery to me.”

“You don’t know who killed Miss Loach?  Please do not look so indignant, Miss Saxon.  I am only doing my duty.”

The girl forced a smile.  “I really do not know, nor can I think what motive the assassin can have had.  He must have had some reason, you know, Mr. Jennings.”

“You say ‘he.’  Was the assassin then a man?”

“I suppose so.  At the inquest the doctor said that no woman could have struck such a blow.  But I am really ignorant of all, save what appeared in the papers.  I am the worst person in the world to apply to for information, sir.”

“Perhaps you are, so far as the crime is concerned.  But there is one question I should like to ask you.  An impertinent one.”

“What is it?” demanded the girl, visibly nervous.

“Why do you refuse to marry Mallow?”

“That is very impertinent,” said Juliet, controlling herself; “so much so that I refuse to reply.”

“As a gentleman, I take that answer,” said Jennings mildly, “but as a detective I ask again for your reason.”

“I fail to see what my private affairs have to do with the law.”