"Dexter has booked two passages in the Oceanic. Who is his companion?"
I wondered, I had wondered more than once, if his companion were my beautiful violet-eyed acquaintance. A scruple — perhaps an absurd scruple — hitherto had kept me silent respecting her, but now I determined to take Bristol fully into my confidence. A conviction was growing upon me that she and Earl Dexter together represented that third party whose existence we had long suspected. Whether they operated separately or on behalf of the Moslems (of which arrangement I could not conceive) remained to be seen. I was about to voice my doubts and suspicions when Bristol went on hurriedly—
"I have thoroughly examined the Burton Room, and considering that the windows are thirty feet from the ground, that there is no sign of a ladder having stood upon the lawn, and that the iron bars are quite intact, it doesn't look humanly possible for any one to have been in the room last night prior to Mostyn's arrival!"
"One of the dwarfs—"
"Not even one of the dwarfs," said Bristol, "could have passed between those iron bars!"
"But there was blood on the window!"
"I know there was, and human blood. It's been examined!"
He stared at me fixedly. The thing was unspeakably uncanny.
"To-night," he went on, "I am remaining in here" — nodding toward the Assyrian Room—"and I have so arranged it that no mortal being can possibly know I am here. Mostyn is staying, and you can stay, too, if you care to. Owing to Professor Deeping's will you are badly involved in the beastly business, and I have no doubt you are keen to see it through."
"I am," I admitted, "and the end I look for and hope for is the recovery of the slipper by its murderous owners!"