Bob's alibi (spoilers)


When Bob is discovered with the body, he initially exclaims (truthfully) that he wasn't in the room when the murderer arrived -- but immediately retracts this statement.

What is he concealing, and why? We later learn that the guards at the foot of the staircase, whom he was going to question as to events outside, had left their posts and therefore would not have seen him -- again, this seems to hint that something significant must have happened to him during this period.

Or is it just that, by presenting the perfectly truthful defence that he had left the room against orders and therefore was not after all a witness to the murder (thus avoiding the whole issue of betraying his cellmate -- he doesn't have to mention that he saw the culprit leave, if not arrive), he would have blown a hole in the plot? :-(

Or is this perhaps a relic of the original stage plot, in which young Graham apparently actually did commit the crime in person?

~~Igenlode

Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round...

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