“How could I recognise the voice of a person unknown to me?” I asked.
“I mean that the cry was a man’s?”
“No—a woman’s.”
“What?” he exclaimed, taking his cigar from his lips, and staring at me with a hardness at the corners of his mouth. “Are you quite sure of that? It isn’t in the evidence I’ve read.”
“I know it isn’t,” I said. “There are several things known to me that are not in the depositions.”
“And what are they?”
“Matters which concern only myself,” I replied. “I’m endeavouring to obtain a solution of the mystery. The police have failed, so I am making independent inquiries on my own account.”
His brows again contracted slightly, and I saw that what I said was to him the reverse of welcome.
“And what have you discovered?” he asked with a dark look which struck me as curious. “You have surely good scope for your efforts in such an affair. Lord Stanchester is exceedingly anxious that the truth should be revealed. He asked me my opinion—knowing my keen interest in mysteries of all sorts.”
“And what is your opinion?”