Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/214

 the murderer could have got into the room and made his escape again."

"The French windows were open," said Mr. Mann. "All the evidence that we have is to this effect, including the evidence of P. C. Wiseman."

"In those circumstances, how comes it that the constable, who, when he heard the shot, made straight for the room, did not meet the murderer escaping? He saw nobody in the grounds—"

"Except Sergeant Smith, or Crawley," interspersed Saul Arthur Mann readily. "I have reason to believe, and, indeed, reason to know, that Sergeant Smith, or Crawley, had a motive for being in the house. I supplied Mr. Minute, who was a client of mine, with certain documents, and those documents were in a safe in his bedroom. What is more likely than that this Crawley, to whom it was vitally necessary that the documents in question should be recovered, should have entered the house in search of those documents? I don't mind