The inspector smiled sourly, but made no reply.
"The circumstances," said Thorndyke, "appear to have been these: The deceased seems to have been alone; there is no trace of a second occupant of the room, and only one half-emptied tumbler on the table. He was sitting reading when apparently he noticed that the clock had stopped—at ten minutes to twelve; he laid his book, face downwards, on the table, and rose to wind the clock, and as he was winding it he met his death."
"By a stab dealt by a left-handed man, who crept up behind him on tiptoe," added the inspector.
Thorndyke nodded. "That would seem to be so," he said. "But now let us call in the porter, and hear what he has to tell us."
The custodian was not difficult to find, being, in fact, engaged at that moment in a survey of the premises through the slit of the letter-box.
"Do you know what persons visited these rooms last night?" Thorndyke asked him, when he entered looking somewhat sheepish.
"A good many were in and out of the building," was the answer, "but I can't say if any of them came to this flat. I saw Miss Curtis pass in about nine."
"My daughter!" exclaimed Mr. Curtis, with a start. "I didn't know that."
"She left about nine-thirty," the porter added.
"Do you know what she came about?" asked the inspector.