“Because—­”

“That was a point which, to my mind, the police never made the most of.  Now, my experience in criminal cases has invariably been that when a typewritten letter figures in one, that letter is a forgery.  It is not very difficult to imitate a signature, but it is a jolly sight more difficult to imitate a handwriting throughout an entire letter.”

“Then, do you think—­”

“I think, if you will allow me,” he interrupted excitedly, “that we will go through the points—­the sensible, tangible points of the case.  Firstly:  Mr. Morton disappears with L10,000 in his pocket for four entire days; at the end of that time he is discovered loosely tied to an arm-chair, and a wool shawl round his mouth.  Secondly:  A man named Skinner is accused of the outrage.  Mr. Morton, although he himself is able, mind you, to furnish the best defence possible for Skinner, by denying his identity with the man who assaulted him, refuses to prosecute.  Why?”

“He did not wish to drag his wife’s name into the case.”

“He must have known that the Crown would take up the case.  Then, again, how is it no one saw him in the company of the swarthy foreigner he described?”

“Two witnesses did see Mr. Morton in company with Skinner,” argued Polly.

“Yes, at 9.20 in West Street; that would give Edward Skinner time to catch the 9.45 at the station, and to entrust Mr. Morton with the latch-key of Russell House,” remarked the man in the corner dryly.

“What nonsense!” Polly ejaculated.

“Nonsense, is it?” he said, tugging wildly at his bit of string; “is it nonsense to affirm that if a man wants to make sure that his victim shall not escape, he does not usually wind rope ‘loosely’ round his figure, nor does he throw a wool shawl lightly round his mouth.  The police were idiotic beyond words; they themselves discovered that Morton was so ‘loosely’ fastened to his chair that very little movement would have disentangled him, and yet it never struck them that nothing was easier for that particular type of scoundrel to sit down in an arm-chair and wind a few yards of rope round himself, then, having wrapped a wool shawl round his throat, to slip his two arms inside the ropes.”

“But what object would a man in Mr. Morton’s position have for playing such extraordinary pranks?”

“Ah, the motive!  There you are!  What do I always tell you?  Seek the motive!  Now, what was Mr. Morton’s position?  He was the husband of a lady who owned a quarter of a million of money, not one penny of which he could touch without her consent, as it was settled on herself, and who, after the terrible way in which she had been plundered and then abandoned in her early youth, no doubt kept a very tight hold upon the purse-strings.  Mr. Morton’s subsequent life has proved that he had certain expensive, not altogether avowable, tastes.  One day he discovers the old love letters of the ‘Comte Armand de la Tremouille.’