The weapon cannot be
discovered, nor the means--save as we suggest above--
whereby the assassin can have made his escape. The whole
affair is one of the most mysterious of late years, and will
doubtless be relegated to the list of undiscovered crimes.
The police have no clue, and apparently despair of finding
one. But the discovery of the mystery lies in the bell. Who
rang it? or did it ring of itself, as we suggest above."
Cuthbert laid down the paper with a shrug. The article did
not commend itself to him, save as the means of making a
precis of the case. The theory of the bell appeared
excessively weak, and he could not understand a man being so
foolish as to put it forward.
"If the button was pressed down by Miss Loach, the bell would
have rung at once," argued Cuthbert; "and when it slipped up,
even with the heat, the ringing would have stopped. But the
bell rang at eleven, and the girl was in the room two minutes
later. Someone must have rung it. But why did someone do
this, and how did someone escape after ringing in so
fool-hardy a manner?"
He could not find an answer to this question. The whole case
was indeed most perplexing. There seemed absolutely no answer
to the riddle. Even supposing Miss Loach had been murdered
out of a long-delayed revenge by a member of the Saul family--
and that theory appeared ridiculous to Mallow--the
question was how did the assassin escape? Certainly, having
regard to the cards still being on the lap of the deceased,
and the closing of the door at a time when the policeman was
not in the vicinity, the assassin may have escaped in that
way.
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