Miss Silver coughed,

“The clock had been tampered with.”

“God bless my soul!” said Colonel Bostock.

Miss Silver continued to knit.

“Mr. Pearson’s alibi naturally attracted my attention. It was, if I may put it in that way, so very determined. On the other hand, he made no secret of the fact that it had been carefully arranged. If you will refer to his statement you will see that he says quite plainly, ‘After the accusation made by Mr. Paradine against a member of his family whom he did not name, I could not afford to have it supposed by anyone that it might be aimed at me. I therefore waited for Mr. Wray and took care to remain in his company until well after midnight-Mr. Paradine having stated that he would sit up in the study until twelve o’clock. It was just on ten past when Mr. Wray and I separated at the door of his room.’ ”

Vyner had been flicking over pages. He nodded.

“Word-perfect, Miss Silver.”

She inclined her head.

“You see he is quite frank, and that what he says is reasonable. He is not liked by the rest of the family. The cousinship is a distant one, and as far as any familiarity is concerned is more or less in abeyance. It is only the younger members of the family whom he addresses by their Christian names. It is Miss Paradine-Mr. Ambrose-Miss Ambrose. Everyone would have been relieved if he had been the culprit. The desire for an alibi might therefore be natural and innocent. On the other hand it might not. If he had a motive for killing his employer, this innocent-seeming alibi might be very useful indeed. No motive has up to the present come to light, but if such a motive should be discovered, then the following points will be of interest.” She unrolled some more of the dark grey wool, turned her knitting, and continued. “The first point is this. If you will turn again to Mr. Pearson’s statement you will see he says that Lane was in the study when he went in to bid Mr. Paradine goodnight. In Lane’s statement there is what reads like a corroboration of this, but it is not quite accurate. Mr. Wray, Mrs. Wray, Mr. Ambrose, and Mr. Mark were all greeted by Mr. Paradine with the same half sarcastic, half jocular remark, ‘Have you come to confess?’ I wished to know whether Mr. Pearson had been greeted in the same way. If he had, and if there were anything serious on his conscience, the question might very well have convinced him that his fault was known, and he may then have planned Mr. Paradine’s death. All this, of course, depends on whether he had some serious dereliction to conceal. On questioning Lane I discovered that he was not actually in the study when Mr. Pearson entered it. He was coming through the swing door with a tray, when Mr. Pearson, who had approached from the other end of the passage, passed before him into the study. He heard Mr. Paradine say, ‘Hullo, Albert- have you come to confess?’ ”

“God bless my soul!”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“It is not necessary to labour this point. We do not know whether Mr. Pearson had anything on his conscience or not. He had no time to answer Mr. Paradine, because Lane came into the room, and though he was called back for a moment as Lane was leaving again, he was out in the passage before the swing door had closed. I really do not wish to put too much stress on this small point, but I think it may have to be considered later on.”

Vyner said, “The point being, why did Mr. Pearson say that Lane was already in the room when he came in?”

“Yes.”

“It might be just part of his being nervous about his reputation.”

“That had not escaped me, Superintendent.” She coughed and continued. “We now come to the second point. If Mr. Pearson’s alibi was a false one, the clock in Mr. Wray’s room must have been tampered with. I tried to think when it might have been done. Not before dinner, because there was no indication then that the room would be occupied, or that Mr. Paradine would make the accusation which he did, in fact, make after dinner. Not between the time the accusation was made and a quarter to ten, because Mr. Pearson was in company with the rest of the party during that time. The first opportunity would occur between the time when Lane saw him leave the study after saying goodnight to Mr. Paradine and the time, a few minutes later, when Mr. Wray found him waiting in the passage. He would have had time in the interval to run up the back stairs and alter the clock in Mr. Wray’s room.”

Colonel Bostock gave an expostulatory grunt.

“What the fellow might have done isn’t evidence, madam!”

Miss Silver met his frown with undisturbed placidity. She hastened to agree with him.

“Precisely. There was no evidence. I am merely telling you what led me to enquire whether any evidence existed. I went to my room last night at a quarter to ten. A few minutes later the young under housemaid, Polly Parsons, came in to turn down the bed. On thinking this over it occurred to me that she might, whilst performing the same office on Thursday night, have noticed the clock in Mr. Wray’s room. I found an opportunity of questioning her just before lunch to-day, and this is what she told me. She had been helping with the washing-up on Thursday night because of the party, but when Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose went away at a quarter to ten Louisa sent her up to turn down the two gentlemen’s beds and put a couple of hot-water bottles in Mr. Wray’s because there hadn’t been time to air it. She came up the back stairs on the kitchen side of the house and along past Mrs. Wray’s and Miss Paradine’s rooms, and she saw Mr. Pearson come out of Mr. Wray’s room and run along the passage towards the back stairs on that side. She said she wondered what he was doing in Mr. Wray’s room. She went in and turned down the bed and put in the hot-water bottles, and just as she was straightening up she saw the clock on the mantelpiece, and she thought, ‘Well, it is late!’ because the hands were standing at ten minutes past ten. Then she went across the passage into Mr. Pearson’s room, and the clock there made it five minutes to. She thought how angry Mr. Paradine would be, because all the clocks had to be just so, and she says she went down into the kitchen and talked about it to the other girl, Gladys, and to Louisa.”

Colonel Bostock pursed up his lips and whistled.

Vyner said, “One of the first things we did was to check up on the clocks. The one in Mr. Wray’s room was right to the tick on the Friday morning-but of course it would be.”

Miss Silver nodded.

“Mr. Pearson would have set the hands back again whilst Mr. Wray was in the bathroom. He strikes me as a very thorough young man.” She paused, gave her slight cough, and continued. “There is just one other point. Mr. Wray says that he and Mr. Pearson came down to the dining-room for a drink soon after half past eleven. When I asked him if he could not be a little more exact he said oh, yes, he looked at the clock, saw that the hands were standing at sixteen or seventeen minutes to twelve, and proposed that they should go down to the dining-room. As they came into the hall, he heard the front door close. But Mr. Mark Paradine says he left the house at half past eleven, and it was he who shut that door. There would be a definite discrepancy if it were not that we now know that the clock in Mr. Wray’s room was a quarter of an hour fast. This discrepancy corroborates Polly’s story.”

Colonel Bostock whistled again. Vyner said,

“There is a clock in the hall, and one in the dining-room. Wouldn’t Mr. Wray have been likely to notice the discrepancy himself?”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I think not. The hall has only one very dim light, and as to the dining-room, Mr. Pearson could have provided against any danger of the clock on the mantelpiece being noticed by only switching on the light over the sideboard. This would appear quite natural, as the drinks were there. In any case I do not think that Mr. Wray was in a very observant frame of mind. He had just met his wife again after a year’s estrangement, and his thoughts were very much taken up with his own affairs.”