I have not used the ladder, maybe, for a fortnight, but I know that it was hanging in its place yesterday afternoon." "I expect the fellow was prowling about here for some time," Mark said.
"I was chatting with my father in the library when I thought I heard a noise, and I threw open the window, which had by some carelessness been left a little open, and went out, and listened for nearly an hour, but I could hear nothing, and put it down to the fact that I was nervous owing to what had happened early in the evening, and that the noise was simply fancy, or that the frost had caused a dry branch of one of the shrubs to crack." "How was it you did not notice the window was open as you went in ?" "The curtains were drawn, sir.

I glanced at that when I went into the room with my father.

After being shot at once from outside, it was possible that we might be again; though I own that I did not for a moment think that the fellow would return after the hot chase that I gave him.

I suppose after I went in he looked about and found the ladder; it is likely enough that he would have had a file with him in case he had any bars to cut through to get into the house, but to my mind it is more likely that he knew where to find the ladder without any looking for it; it has hung there as long as I can remember." "Yes, sir," the gardener said, "I have worked for the Squire ever since he came here, and the ladder was bought a week or two after he took me on, and the Squire settled where it should be hung, so that it might be handy either in case of fire or if wanted for a painting job.

This aint the first ladder; we got a new one four years ago." "It is singular that the man should have known which was the window of your father's room." "Very singular," Mark said.
Shortly after the doctor left, and Mark had a long talk with the magistrate in the library, and told him his reasons for suspecting that the murderer was Arthur Bastow.
"It certainly looks like it," the magistrate said thoughtfully, after he had heard Mark's story, "though of course it is only a case of strong suspicion, and not of legal proof.