“Did you see or meet any one in particular while your car approached these mansions, or when you ascended the stairs?”

“No,” said Theydon.

He perceived intuitively that if the detectives found the driver of the taxi which brought him from the theater it was possible the man might have noticed Forbes, who had certainly been scrutinized a few minutes later by a policeman, so he hastened to add: 

“You said ‘any one in particular.’  I did see a tall, well-dressed gentleman at the corner of the street, but there is nothing remarkable in that.”

“Which way was he heading?”

“In this direction.”

“Then it is conceivable that he might be the man who called on Mrs. Lester?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you pretty sure he was the man?”

Theydon permitted himself to look astonished.

“I?” he said.  “How can I be sure?  If you mean that, judging from the interval of time between my seeing him at the corner and the sound of footsteps on the stairs, followed by the opening of the door at No. 17, it could be he, I accept that.”

Winter nodded again.  Apparently he was content with Theydon’s correction.

“As the weather was bad, you probably hurried in when your cab stopped?” he said.

“That is equivalent to saying you credit me with sense enough to get in out of the wet,” smiled Theydon.

“Just so.  And you wore an overcoat, which you removed on entering your hall?”

“Yes,” and Theydon’s tone showed a certain bewilderment at these trivialities.

“Then if you paid no special heed to the movements of the tall gentleman you have mentioned, why did you open one of these windows and look out soon after Bates went to the post?”

Theydon flushed like a schoolboy caught by a master under circumstances which youth generally describes as “a clean cop.”

“How on earth do you know I looked out?” he almost gasped.

“I’ll tell you willingly.  The discovery was Mr. Furneaux’s, not mine.  When we came here this morning, and ascertained that you had been out at a late hour last night, we asked your man if he could enlighten us as to your movements.  He did so.  To the best of his belief you dined at a club, and occupied a stall at Daly’s Theater subsequently.  He was sure, too, you had not walked home through the rain, so it was easy to draw the conclusion that you returned in a covered vehicle.  Mr. Furneaux requested Bates to produce the clothes you had worn, which, owing to the uproar created by the news of the murder, had not been brushed and put away.  As a consequence the silk collar and part of the back of your dress-coat bore the marks of raindrops.  How had they got there?  The only logical deduction was that you had thrust your head and shoulders through a window, and the time of the action is established almost beyond doubt, because you had changed the coat when Bates came from the pillar-box.  It was either directly after you came in, or while Bates was absent.  Of course you may have looked out twice.  Did you?  Whether once or twice, why did you do it?”