Otherwise the hypothesis presents no inherent improbabilities. The man
was last seen alive at Hurst's house. He was seen to enter it and he was
never seen to leave it--we are still taking the facts as stated in the
newspapers, remember--and it now appears that he stands to benefit
enormously by that man's death."
"But," I objected, "you are forgetting that, directly the man was
missed, Hurst and the servants together searched the entire house."
"Yes. What did they search for?"
"Why, for Mr. Bellingham, of course."
"Exactly; for Mr. Bellingham. That is, for a living man. Now how do you
search a house for a living man? You look in all the rooms. When you
look in a room, if he is there, you see him; if you do not see him, you
assume that he is not there. You don't look under the sofa or behind the
piano, you don't pull out large drawers or open cupboards. You just look
into the rooms. That is what these people seem to have done. And they
did not see Mr. Bellingham. But Mr. Bellingham's corpse might have been
stowed away out of sight in any one of the rooms that they looked into.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229