The Hand in the Dark (Thriller Novel). Arthur J. Rees

doing here either," he said as he scrambled to his feet. "There are neither footprints nor marks such as one would expect to find if a man had dropped out of the window. What are you looking at, Weyling?"

      In reply Inspector Weyling made his first and only contribution towards the elucidation of the crime.

      "Could not the murderer have climbed up to the bedroom by that creeper?" he asked, pointing to a thin trail of Virginia creeper which stretched up the wall almost as high as the window.

      Merrington tested the frail creeper with his great hand. His sharp tug detached a mass of the plant from the brickwork.

      "Not likely," he replied. "It might bear the weight of a boy or a slender girl, but not of a man. What do you think, Caldew?"

      Caldew nodded without speaking. Weyling's remark had started a train of thought in his mind, but he had no intention of revealing it to a man who plainly did not intend to confer with him on equal terms, or disclose his own theory of the murder—if he had formed one.

      "Let us get inside again," said Merrington, in his masterful way.

      He turned back towards the house, and the others followed.