“What fools we’ve been! Don’t you see that if the man was really pitched out of the three o’clock from London, which doesn’t stop between Weighford and Binver, a ticket for Paston Whitchurch would disguise the fact that he came by that train, and make everybody think he came in the later one—the 4.50 from Paston Oatvile?”
“By Gad, that sounds more promising. Then the murderer could prove an alibi by showing that he travelled on the three o’clock, eh?”
“That would be about the size of it. Let’s see, had we any other reason for assuming the 4.50 train?”
“The watch—the wrist-watch, that is. It had stopped at 4.54.”
“You mean that it stopped at a moment when its hands were pointing to 4.54. But obviously it would be the simplest thing in the world to fake a watch. And—I say, Gordon, we can prove it!”
“Prove it?”
“Yes, from the other watch, the stomach-watch. Don’t you remember it was still going when we found it, only an hour fast? Well, the reason why it was an hour fast was that the murderer, at 3.54 on Tuesday afternoon, deliberately took it out of the pocket and turned it on to 4.54.”
“You mean . . .”
“I mean that the murderer naturally assumed it would stop, like the wrist-watch. And if it had stopped, it would have registered 4.54, like the wrist-watch. But by the accident of its not stopping, we can prove what the murderer did!”
“I say, this is a day! but I feel as if there was something else we were held up over about the time—oh yes. Look here, we’ve now got to explain why Brotherhood ordered himself a sleeper for Wednesday, although one would have expected him to want to clear out on Tuesday. Our explanation, you see, was that coming to Paston Whitchurch on the 4.50 would make it too late for him to get a sleeper that night. But apparently we were wrong, because he came on the three o’clock from London; and I remember, when I looked it up in the time-table, I found he could have caught his train at Crewe—going on from Binver, of course.”