“I became aware that of the two first-floor windows of Abbotshall which (see Part I.) are over the window through which the murderer entered the study, the more easterly must have been the one used by the murderer. For I saw what I had not seen at first, that it would be almost an impossibility for a man descending by a rope from the other window to swing his legs, at the end of the descent, on to the sill of the study window, since that window is not exactly, as one would find in a house younger and less altered than Abbotshall, between the two first-floor windows above it but has most of its length beneath the more easterly. Moreover, although a man descending from the less easterly window might possibly have struck with his foot that one shoot of creeper in the cleared space beside the drain-pipe (see Part I.), he would also be bound to do damage to the main body of the creeper—and that is uninjured.
“It was, in fact, obvious that the murderer had come out of the room with the more easterly window. (I was annoyed with myself for not having seen this sooner.)
“That window is to the room occupied as a sitting-room by Sir Arthur Digby-Coates.
“My suspect amateur carpenter was Sir Arthur Digby-Coates.
“When at last I put to Deacon my question of who had given him any implement with a wooden handle to hold, the answer was: ‘Sir Arthur Digby-Coates.’
“(Note.—Before going on to Part III, it might be well to explain briefly the circumstances in which Deacon was induced to leave the prints of his fingers on the handle. It is not essential, but may be of interest. Deacon, when I asked him my question, explained that on the morning of the day of the murder he passed by Digby-Coates’s sitting-room. The door was open. Digby-Coates called to him to come in. He entered to find, as on several previous occasions, that Digby-Coates was amusing himself with the completing of an excellent carved cabinet he had been engaged on for many weeks. Digby-Coates was in difficulties, having, he explained, too few hands. Deacon was asked to stand by. He did so, and assisted the enthusiast by handing from the carpenter’s bench near the window, one tool after the other. Among them was one, he just remembered, with a handle such as I had described and such as he remembered the wood-rasp handle to be now that he came to think of it.)
“So there you are. When I heard the story I felt, I confess, no little admiration for Digby-Coates. He is so thorough! You see, this was not the first time Deacon had given such assistance. And he knew Deacon thought little and cared less about the whole business of cabinet-making.
III
“It is evidence purely of trivialities which has put Deacon in a cell awaiting trial; yet I am convinced that did I attempt to establish his innocence merely by the means I have employed so far, the very people who already accept his guilt as certain would accuse me of having nothing but trivialities upon which to base my version of the affair. Further, it could be said—and would be—that I have read between the lines writing which was not there; that I have so ingeniously twisted the interpretation of what are, in fact, merely ordinarily meaningless signs as to make them appear a grim and coherent indictment against another man; that I have seen an anarchist bomb in a schoolboy’s snowball and a Bolshevik outrage in a varsity rag.
“So I must strengthen my case; for the truth is that this evidence of trivialities is good, but not nearly good enough. It must have a backing to it.