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photograph altered its appearance. He was completely unstrung; and the form his nerves took was an intense desire that we should drop the inquiry altogether. He had begun to grow superstitious, as so many murderers do. But he made the best use he could of it, by trying to shut down our investigations on the strength of it. That failed, but something even better turned up⁠—Davenant's hiding in the secret passage. By the way, I'm pretty well convinced, though I can't prove it, that it was Marryatt and not Davenant who took away the copy of that paper, with the cipher on it. Of course, when we found Davenant, it not only concealed the fact that he had taken away the cipher, but also turned the suspicion into quite a different channel.

"Here, I must admit, Marryatt shows up badly. He saw an innocent man accused, and he took no action to exculpate him. On the contrary, he stated to me quite emphatically his belief in Davenant's guilt. But we mustn't judge him hardly; he may have meant⁠—he may still mean, for all we know, to come forward if Davenant is found guilty. Meanwhile, there's one more piece of evidence which I understand now, though it has bothered us a good deal. You remember the thing we call the 'washing-list,' the words we found on the back of the anonymous letter?"

"Yes, rather. What about it?"

"Well, it clearly wasn't part of the cipher, was it?"