chestnut-tree. Creake has everything in his favour, but it is just
within possibility that the driver of an inopportune train might
notice the appendage. What of that? Why, for more than a week he has
seen a derelict kite with its yards of trailing string hanging in the
tree. A very calculating mind, Mr. Hollyer. It would be interesting to
know what line of action Mr. Creake has mapped out for himself
afterwards. I expect he has half-a-dozen artistic little touches up
his sleeve. Possibly he would merely singe his wife's hair, burn her
feet with a red-hot poker, shiver the glass of the French window, and
be content with that to let well alone. You see, lightning is so
varied in its effects that whatever he did or did not do would be
right. He is in the impregnable position of the body showing all the
symptoms of death by lightning shock and nothing else but lightning to
account for it--a dilated eye, heart contracted in systole, bloodless
lungs shrunk to a third the normal weight, and all the rest of it.
When he has removed a few outward traces of his work Creake might
quite safely 'discover' his dead wife and rush off for the nearest
doctor. Or he may have decided to arrange a convincing alibi, and
creep away, leaving the discovery to another. We shall never know; he
will make no confession."

"I wish it was well over," admitted Hollyer, "I'm not particularly
jumpy, but this gives me a touch of the creeps."

"Three more hours at the worst, lieutenant," said Carrados cheerfully.
"Ah-ha, something is coming through now."

He went to the telephone and received a message from one quarter; then
made another connection and talked for a few minutes with someone
else.