"Who?"
"Don't ask me. I have no grounds on which to accuse anyone. Let me tell you what I can. Then you may think—but that's impossible. Cuthbert, ask me no more questions."
Mallow thought her demeanor strangely suspicious, and wondered if she was shielding her mother. Mrs. Octagon, who hated Selina Loach, might have struck the blow, but there was absolutely no proof of this. Mallow decided to ask nothing, as Juliet requested. "Tell me what you will, my dear," he said, "so long as you don't believe me guilty."
"I don't—I don't—really I don't. I picked up the knife and left the room after ten minutes. I stole up the stairs and shut the door so quietly that no one heard. You see, the first time I did not trouble to do that, but when I found that aunt was dead I was afraid lest the servants should come and find me there. I fancied, as I had the knife in my hand and had entered by means of the latch-key, that I might be suspected. Besides, it would have been difficult to account for my unexpected presence in the house at that hour."
"I quite comprehend!" said Mallow grimly. "We can't all keep our heads in these difficult situations. Well?"
"I came out into the garden. I heard the policeman coming down the lane, and knew I could not escape unobserved that way. Then if I took the path to the station I fancied he might see me in the moonlight. I ran across the garden by the wall and got over the fence amongst the corn, where I lay concealed. Then I saw you coming round the corner. You climbed the wall and went into the park. After that I waited till after eleven, when the policeman entered the house, summoned by the servants. I then ran round the field, sheltered from observation by the corn, which, as you know, was then high, and I got out at the further side. I walked to Keighley, the next place to Rexton, and took a cab home. I went straight to bed, and did not see Basil till the next morning. He told me he had come home later, but he did not say where he had been, nor did I ask him."
"But I am sure—unless my watch was wrong, that I climbed the wall at a quarter past ten," insisted Mallow.
"You might have climbed it again at a quarter to eleven."
"No! I climbed it only once. Which way did I come?"
"Along the path from the station. Then you walked beside the fence on the corn side, and jumping over, you climbed the wall."