anybody do?" said Barthorpe, with a mirthless laugh. "You know
all the evidence. It's enough--they'll hang me on it!"

"Barthorpe, you mustn't!" expostulated Peggie. "That's not the way to
treat things. Tell him," she went on, turning to Selwood, "tell him all
that Professor Cox-Raythwaite said the other night."

Selwood repeated the gist of the Professor's arguments and suggestions,
and Barthorpe began to show some interest. But at the end he shook his
head.

"I don't know that there's anything more that I can tell," he said.
"Whatever anybody may think, I told the entire truth about myself and
this affair in that statement before the magistrate. Of course, you know
they didn't want me to say a word--my legal advisers, I mean. They were
dead against it. But you see, I was resolved on it--I wanted it to get
in the papers. I told everything in that. I tried to put it as plainly
as I could. No--I've told the main facts."

"But aren't there any little facts, Barthorpe?" asked Peggie. "Can't you
think of any small thing--was there nothing that would give--I don't
know how to put it."

"Anything that you can think of that would give a clue?" suggested
Selwood. "Was there nothing you noticed--was there anything----"

Barthorpe appeared to be thinking; then to be hesitating--finally, he
looked at Selwood a little shamefacedly.

"Well, there were one or two things that I didn't tell," he said.
"I--the fact is, I didn't think they were of importance. One of them was
about that key to the Safe Deposit. You know you and I couldn't find it
when we searched the office that morning. Well, I had found it. Or
rather, I took it off the bunch of keys. I wanted to search the safe at
the Safe Deposit myself. But I never did. I don't know whether the
detectives have found it or not--I threw it into a drawer at my office
in which there are a lot of other keys. But, you know, there's nothing
in that--nothing at all."

"You said one or two other things just now," remarked Selwood. "That's
one--what's the other?"

Barthorpe hesitated. The three were not the only occupants of that
gloomy room, and though the official ears might have been graven out of
stone, he felt their presence.

"Don't keep anything back, Barthorpe," pleaded Peggie.

"Oh, well!" responded Barthorpe. "I'll tell you, though I don't know
what good it will do. I didn't tell this, because--well, of course, it's
not exactly a thing a man likes to tell. When I looked