xactly!" chimed Sloane, in tremulous relief. "Shivering saints! Why
haven't you said so long ago, Tom?"

"I didn't give him credit for the wild insanity he's showing," said
Wilton thickly.

Whatever had been his first impulse, however near he had been to trying
to explain away all blame in the Dalton murder, it was clear to Hastings
now that he intended to rely on flat denial of his connection with the
death of Mildred Brace. He had, perhaps, decided that explanation was
too difficult.

Seeing his indecision, Hastings turned on Sloane.

"You've been exceedingly offensive to me on several occasions, Mr.
Sloane. And I've had enough of it. Now, I've got the facts to show that
you're as foolish in the selection of your friends as in making enemies.
I'm about to charge this man Wilton with murder. He killed Mildred
Brace, and I can prove it. If you want to hear the facts back of this
mystery; if you want the stuff that will enable you to decide whether
you'll stand by him or against him, you can have it!"

Before Sloane could recover from his surprise at the old man's hot
resentment, Wilton said, with an air of careless contempt:

"Oh, we've got to deal with what he says, Arthur. I'd rather answer it
here than with an audience."

"The reading public, for instance?" Hastings retorted, and added: "It
may interest you, Mr. Sloane, to know that you gave me my first
suspicion of him. When you stepped back from the handkerchief I held out
to you--remember, as I was kneeling over the body, and the servant
laughed at you?--I jammed it into Wilton's right-hand coat-pocket.

"Later, when I got it back from him, I saw clinging to it a few cigar
ashes and two small particles of wet tobacco. He had had in that pocket
a cigar stump wet from his saliva.

"When he began then his story of finding the body, he said, 'I'd been
smoking my good-night cigar; this is what's left of it.' As he said
that, he pointed to the unlit--remember that, unlit--cigar stump between
his teeth. He made it a point to emphasize the fact that so little time
had elapsed between his finding the body and his giving the alarm that
he hadn't smoked up the cigar, and also he hadn't taken time to put his
hand to his mouth, take out the cigar and throw it away.

"It was one of the over-fine little touches that a guilty man tries to
pile on his scheme for appearing innocent. But what are the facts?

"Just now, as soon as he got excited, he mechanically fubbed ou