The Cheap-jack who had been in a brown study, woke up at the direct question.
"I have never met the man you call Gowrie," he said, after a thoughtful pause, "but he is as innocent as Mr. Herries here."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"Because, from what I discovered in the death-room, I am sure that Sir Simon was murdered by the man who passed out in his fur coat, and who masqueraded as him to get away."
"What did you discover?" asked Herries, quickly.
"Several things. The window was open----"
"Mrs. Narby might have done that, to air the room," said Herries.
"People don't generally air the room, with a dead body within it," said Kind dryly, "and certainly a close-fisted woman like Mrs. Narby would not risk her furniture being spoilt by the incoming mist. No! that window was opened by the man who climbed up to murder Sir Simon, and as the dressing-table was before it, no one looked until I did."
"How do you know that a man climbed up?"
"How else did the man who escaped in the fur coat--the true assassin--enter?" questioned Kind, sharply.