"You are not the witness, for the moment, Miss Clyde," said the coroner, severely. "Agnes, what did Mrs. Pell say to her niece in response to her chiding?"
"She only laughed, and said that Miss Iris looked like a circus clown."
"Then what did Miss Clyde say?"
"She said that Mrs. Pell was a fiend in human shape and that she hated her. Then she ran upstairs and went into her own room and slammed the door."
"Have you any reason to think, Agnes, that there is any secret mode of connection between Mrs. Pell's sitting room and Miss Clyde's bedroom, directly above it?"
"Why, no, sir, I never heard of such a thing."
"Absurd!" broke in Winston Bannard, "utterly absurd. If there were such a thing, it could certainly be discovered by your expert detectives."
"There isn't any," declared Hughes, positively. "I've sounded the walls and examined the floor and ceiling, and there's not a chance of it. The way the murderer got out of that locked room is a profound mystery, but it won't be solved by means of a secret entrance."
"Yet what other possibility can be suggested?" went on Timken, thoughtfully. "And the connection needn't be directly with Miss Clyde's room. Suppose there is a sliding wall panel, or an exit to the cellar, in some way."
"But there isn't," insisted Hughes. "I'm not altogether ignorant of architecture, and there is no such thing in any part of that room. Moreover, how could any outsider come to the house, get in, and get into that room, without any member of the household seeing his approach? The two women servants were in the house, but Campbell, the chauffeur, and Purdy, the gardener, were out of doors, and could have seen anyone who came in at the gate."