The inspector made more dots. "The lady being, I take it, a reliable witness?"
"Most reliable. Moreover, up till then she had no belief in the story that the Priory is haunted."
"Quite so, sir. And on that occasion you discovered the window into the library to have been open?"
"Unbolted. It was shut, however."
"But I understand it could be opened from outside?"
"Yes, certainly it could."
"And this — Monk - would have had plenty of time to escape by that way, pausing to shut the window behind him, in between the time of the lady's falling into a faint, and your arrival on the scene?"
"Plenty of time. So much so that neither my brotherin-law nor I thought it would be of any use to search the grounds."
"I see, sir. And since that occasion no one has, to your knowledge, been in the house?"
"Not to my knowledge. But last night, as I told you, my sister-in-law distinctly saw the Monk in the grounds. A moment later Mr. Ernest Titmarsh ran up to her."