“I chatted for a few minutes with Prescott over the amazing luck he had ... then I went upstairs to bed.”

“Prescott go with you?”

“N-no! He gave me the impression he had something he wished to do.”

“That’s so,” I interjected again, “I spoke to him as I went up, and I gathered something similar.”

“Then you went straight to bed?”

“Yes!”

“Didn’t speak to anybody after you got upstairs to your bedroom?”

“No—yes, I did,” correcting himself. “I sang out ‘good-night’ to Hornby, Robertson and Cunningham here. If you call that speaking to people.”

“The three of them? Where were they?”

“Not exactly to them, Inspector, but as I passed their bedroom doors. I walked down the corridor and called out ‘good-night’ to them as I went. See?”