e me your word you have no conscious recollection of hearing a
shot fired."

"My word before Heaven," he said fervently. "But I tell you, Knox, he
had no weapon. No one came out of that room as I went in and yet he was
only swaying forward, as if I had shot him one moment, and caught him as
he fell, the next. I was dazed; I don't remember yet what I told the
police."

The expression of fear in his eyes was terrible to see. A gust of wind
shook the shutters, and he jumped almost out of his chair.

"You will have to be careful," I said. "There have been cases where men
confessed murders they never committed, driven by Heaven knows what
method of undermining their mental resistance. Yon expose your
imagination to 'third degree' torture of your own invention, and in two
days more you will be able to add full details of the crime."

"I knew you would think me crazy," he put in, a little less somberly,
"but just try it once: sit in a room by yourself all day and all night,
with detectives watching you; sit there and puzzle over a murder of a
man you are suspected of killing; you know you felt like killing him,
and you have a revolver, and he is shot. Wouldn't you begin to think as
I do?"

"Wardrop," I asked, trying to fix his wavering eyes with mine, "do you
own a thirty-two caliber revolver?"

"Yes."

I was startled beyond any necessity, under the circumstances. Many
people have thirty-twos.

"That is, I had," he corrected himself. "It was in the leather bag that
was stolen at Bellwood."

"I can relieve your mind of one thing," I said. "If your revolver was
stolen with the leather bag, you had nothing to do with the murder.
Fleming was shot with a thirty-two." He looked first incredulous, then
relieved.

"Now, then," I pursued, "suppose Mr. Fleming had an enemy, a relentless
one who would stoop to anything to compass his ruin. In his position he
would be likely to have enemies. This person, let us say, knows what you
carry in your grip, and steals it, taking away the funds that would have
helped to keep the lid on Fleming's mismanagement for a time. In the
grip is your revolver; would you know it again?"

He nodded affirmatively.

"This person--this enemy finds the revolver, pockets it and at the first
opportunity, having ruined Fleming, proceeds humanely to put him out of
his suffering. Is it far-fetched?"

"There were a dozen--a hundred--people who would have been glad to ruin
him." His gaze wavered again