I tell you I was at the garden wall
within a few seconds of our friend laying you out, and I saw no
sign of him in his garden. It was a physical impossibility for
him to have got over the wall and back into the house in the
time. And in his garden there's nowhere to hide. It's as bare as
the Sahara!"
"But, good Heavens!" cried Bellward, throwing his hands excitedly
above his head, "the man can't dissolve into thin air. He's gone
back to the house, I tell you, and the police will be here at any
minute. You know he's not in our garden; for you searched every
nook and corner of it yourself. Okewood may be too clever for
you, Strangwise; but he's not a magician!"
"No," said Strangwise sternly, he is not." And he added in a low
voice:
"That's why I am convinced that he is in this house!"
Desmond felt his heart thump against his ribs.
Bellward seemed surprised for he cried quickly:
"What? Here?"
Strangwise nodded.
"You stand here gossiping with that man loose in the house?"
exclaimed Bellward vehemently, "why the next thing we know the
fellow will escape us again!"
"Oh, no, he won't" retorted the other. "Every window on the
ground floor is barred... this is a home for neurasthenics, you
know, and that is sometimes a polite word for a lunatic, my
friend.
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