"Ichabod!" said the Sergeant triumphantly. "By the time she was all set to do a disappearing act down the path, he must have reached the gate. She wouldn't risk hiding in the garden with the late Ernest lying dead in the study. She had to get clear somehow, and her best chance was through the house."
Hannasyde looked up with an arrested expression in his eyes, "Good Lord, Skipper, you may be right! But what happened to Carpenter?"
"If he was hidden behind one of the bushes by the path he could have sneaked back to the gate as soon as Ichabod passed him on his way to the study. Must have done."
"Yes, possibly, but bearing in mind the fact that the other man left the garden at 10.02, and made off as fast as he could walk towards the Arden Road, and was seen by Glass to turn the corner into it, how did Carpenter manage (a) to guess in which direction he'd gone, and (b) to catch up with him?"
"There you have me," owned the Sergeant. "Either he had a lot of luck, or it didn't happen."
"Then how do you account for his having known who North was? The Norths have been kept out of the papers so far." He paused, tapping his pencil lightly on the desk. "We've missed something, Hemingway," he said at last.
"If we have, I'd like to know what it is!" replied the Sergeant.
"We've got to know what it is. I may find it out from North, of course, but somehow I don't think I shall. He's more likely to stand pat, and say nothing."
"He'll have to account for his movements last night, and the night of the late Ernest's murder."
"Yes. But if he gives me an alibi he can't substantiate and I can't check up on, I shall be no better off than I am now. Unless I can trace the connection between him and Carpenter, or prove he was in Barnsley Street last night, I haven't any sort of case against him. Unless I can rattle his wife into talking - or him, through her," he added.