"Not a bit," said the doctor cheerfully. "I suppose you're taking her with you?"
Tarling nodded.
"I can't imagine a girl like that committing a murder," said Dr. Saunders. "She doesn't seem to possess the physique necessary to have carried out all the etceteras of the crime. I read the particulars in the Morning Globe. The person who murdered Thornton Lyne must have carried him from his car and laid him on the grass, or wherever he was found—and that girl couldn't lift a large-sized baby."
Tarling jerked his head in agreement.
"Besides," Dr. Saunders went on, "she hasn't the face of a murderer. I don't mean to say that because she's pretty she couldn't commit a crime, but there are certain types of prettiness which have their origin in spiritual beauty, and Miss Stevens, or Rider, as I suppose I should call her, is one of that type."
"I'm one with you there," said Tarling. "I am satisfied in my own mind that she did not commit the crime, but the circumstances are all against her."
The telephone bell jingled, and the doctor took up the receiver and spoke a few words.
"A trunk call," he said, explaining the delay in receiving acknowledgment from the other end of the wire.
He spoke again into the receiver and then handed the instrument across the table to Tarling.
"It's for you," he said. "I think it is Scotland Yard."