"I beg your pardon, Miss Toat," interrupted Shawe, rather crossly, "but I am a trifle tired of your theories; they lead to nothing."
Miss Toat was not at all put out. "Oh, to theorise is the only way to get at the truth of the matter. One may have a dozen theories, and then can abandon each one in turn as it seems improbable. Let me conduct this business in my own way, Mr. Shawe."
"Well"--Ralph resigned himself to what seemed to him to be a futile discussion--"let us have your latest theory."
"Bearing in mind what Badoura said about the clock being wrong, and Eddy Vail being the husband of Madame Coralie, I think he is the sole person who had any reason to have a skeleton key made for the door in the wall of the court. Probably he wished to enter and leave the house at his convenience without bothering his wife."
"But what would be the use of his entering the court," objected Shawe, "seeing that he could not get into the house? The door was always locked."
"Yes, and the key was usually on a nail in the still-room," said Perry Toat, cleverly. "I found that out when I was staying at the Pink Shop for treatment. Eddy Vail could easily have taken that key when he chose, and have opened the inner door; then he got a key made for the outer door, and thus would be free of the house."
"But this is all imagination, Miss Toat."
"I am only constructing a theory on the evidence. Let us admit that things are as I say. Well, then, on the night Eddy Vail either had both keys in his pocket or only one--that of the outer door. For some reason quite unconnected with Lady Branwin's stay--since he could not have known of it--he entered the court at the time Madame Coralie was in the bedroom with her patient. Looking through the window he would see the diamonds produced, which Madame Coralie--as you declare--says that Lady Branwin gave her. Madame Coralie put Lady Branwin to bed, and the diamonds were replaced in the red bag under the pillow. Then Madame Coralie left the room, say at ten minutes to eight o'clock, whereupon Eddy Vail scrambled in at the window and strangled the woman. He takes the jewels out of the bag and puts them into his pocket; then, to lose no time, he leaves by the bedroom door, and runs up the stairs to the still-room, arriving there at five minutes to the hour, in order to put back the clock to half-past seven. Thirty odd minutes later Madame Coralie, who has been in the shop, comes up, and Eddy draws her attention to the time as five minutes past eight. But, as we now know, it is really close on half-past eight. Madame Coralie goes down at once to see Miss Branwin, to say that her mother will stop for the night, and this will bring the time to that mentioned by Miss Branwin as the hour she arrived at Walpole Lane on her way to the theatre. Afterwards Eddy Vail goes out by the street door, and returns to the court to drop the label and to leave the key in the lock of the court wall door, so as to encourage the idea of burglars. What do you think of that?"
"It's a very feasible theory," said Ralph, after a pause, "but it falls to the ground in the face of Madame Coralie's admission that Lady Branwin gave her the jewels."
"It only makes her an accomplice after the fact," said Perry Toat, cheerfully.