"At a quarter-to-seven. I was keeping my eye on the time, for I had a 'plane to catch."
"So far as you know, there was no other visitor on the premises?"
"I saw no one. Mrs. Haddington led me into the room she calls her boudoir. No one was present but ourselves."
"Thank you, sir. I won't keep you any longer now," said Hemingway.
The Inspector, having shown Poulton out, said: "Och, you have let him go, but he is a canny one!"
"I can pick him up any time I want to," Hemingway replied shortly. "I want those two lengths of wire, Sandy! Send down for them!"
But the gleaming brass wire which had been twisted round Seaton-Carew's neck occupied him for only a minute. Over the other, older, length, he pored for an appreciable space of time, his magnifying-glass steadily focused on its ends. He said suddenly: "Come here, Sandy, and take a look! Would you say this wire has been used to hang a picture with?"
The Inspector studied it intently. "You are right!" he said. "The ends have been straightened, but you can see where the kink was, for the strands are untwisted just there. What might that mean?"
Hemingway leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowed. "That's what I'm wondering. That it was taken off a picture seems certain. Where was the picture?"
"Mo chreach! It might be anywhere!"