"
"He doesn't know yet that it is the scene of his crime," answered
Horne Fisher.
"What on earth do you mean? You credit him with rather singular
absence of mind."
"Well, the truth is, it isn't the scene of his crime," said Fisher,
and went and looked out of the window.
There was another silence, and then Sir Walter said, quietly: "What
sort of notion have you really got in your head, Fisher? Have you
developed a new theory about how this fellow escaped out of the ring
round him?"
"He never escaped at all," answered the man at the window, without
turning round. "He never escaped out of the ring because he was
never inside the ring. He was not in this tower at all, at least not
when we were surrounding it."
He turned and leaned back against the window, but, in spite of his
usual listless manner, they almost fancied that the face in shadow
was a little pale.
"I began to guess something of the sort when we were some way from
the tower," he said. "Did you notice that sort of flash or flicker
the candle gave before it was extinguished? I was almost certain it
was only the last leap the flame gives when a candle burns itself
out. And then I came into this room and I saw that."
He pointed at the table and Sir Walter caught his breath with a sort
of curse at his own blindness.
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