‘Well, when you came back at three o’clock you found your wife was gone?’
‘I did.’
‘Was it not rather strange, considering that you had gone to the beach, that she did not go to the beach also, in order to find you?’
‘At first I thought she must have done so, but I searched the beach and the town, and, finally, the cliffs, without finding any trace of her.’
‘And then you returned to the hotel! At what time might that have been?’
‘I am not sure. At about five, or half-past, I think.’
‘With the exception, then, of a run home for a few minutes, you were absent from the Castle Warden from half-past eleven to half-past five—six hours? And all that time you were bathing or looking for your wife?’
‘I have already told you so,’ answered Frederick.
‘Who saw you during that time, Mr Walcheren? What witnesses can you bring forward to testify that it was spent as you tell us?’
‘Witnesses!’ reiterated Frederick, with a stare. ‘How can I bring witnesses from a place where I am utterly unknown? I have never been in Dover to stay a night before now. Nobody in the town knows me. I have not spoken to an individual, excepting a young man who accosted me whilst swimming, and a girl whom I asked if she had seen—had seen—my—my—wife.’