"And the lady who stole my motor car took it. At least it seems so. But I tell you what, Mr. Giles, I'm too hungry to discuss the matter just now. The whole business is a mystery to me, and Destiny has dragged me into it in a most unpleasant way."
Giles nodded. "It's easy seen you're innocent, sir," he said with an air of relief. "You wouldn't talk so, if you weren't."
"I don't know so much about that. Guilt can wear a mask of brazen innocence if necessary. How do you know I haven't murdered Mrs. Caldershaw, and at this moment may not have the celebrated glass eye in my trouser pocket?"
"We don't know yet that she's been murdered, Mr. Vance. There was no wound----"
"Pooh! She might have been poisoned."
"Why do you think so, sir?" asked Giles quickly.
"Because I write melodramas, and always look on the most dramatic side. Oh, this is your cottage, is it? Quite a stage cottage, with plenty of greenery about the porch."
Giles did not know what to make of my chatter.
"You're a funny gent, sir."
"A hungry one, at all events, my friend. Is this your wife? How are you, Mrs. Giles? I am your husband's prisoner, and for the time being your cottage is a gaol. Mrs. Caldershaw's dead, and I've stolen her glass eye."