You will get a solemn letter of thanks from Nixon, I expect. You’ve been remarkably nippy getting on to the trail, you cunning old devil. The case has interested me very much. It looked so complicated and it was actually so simple, once Bob Parsons had made his statement. Of course Mason had no idea Bob was in a position to provide a cast-iron alibi for the entire company, and no doubt thought that it would look as if any one of them might have dodged out and popped up to the grid. We have been very lucky. If Miss Dacres had not dropped the tiki I don’t believe we should have made an arrest. The stage-staff would have sworn it was murder, but everyone else would have thought they had made a mistake over the weights. I can’t help wondering if Mason meant, all along, to do just what Miss Dacres did for him. He didn’t get a chance, as it happened. I packed him off to the office with Te Pokiha. Really, he planned the thing quite well. His visit to the stage-door established his alibi, and his remark about the cold air drew Singleton’s attention to the fact that he was hatless and in his dinner-jacket. He returned to the office, put on his overcoat and hat, slid along the wall under cover of the open door—it’s an ill-lit place at night—walked boldly across the open end where there must have been plenty of people coming away from the show, came back along the yard, hidden from Singleton by the projecting bicycle shed, and then doubled round to the back of the theatre using the back-door key and leaving it on the inside when he returned.

If Te Pokiha had not come in from the box-office, I fancy Mason would have opened the door and shown himself, without his overcoat, to the clerks. That five minutes would never have been accounted for. Of course, we are now going over every inch of the path behind the sheds and hope to get something from it. The defence will have a little difficulty in accounting for Mason’s vivid recollection of an incident that never took place. Susan Max was not projected into my lap in the train, nor did Ackroyd utter any oaths. Mason, of course, thought this little diversion must have occurred when he was put on the platform taking a place kick at Meyer’s behind, and did not dare say he had not remembered it. He couldn’t say he had slept through it, as he’s always talking about being a light sleeper. Broadhead remembers someone coming back from the head of the carriage and sitting somewhere behind him. This, I believe, was Mason returning from his attempt. I fancy he got his idea for the second and successful attempt from the accident with the falling weight.