t his
cigar. It's a habit of his--whenever he's in a close corner. He did it
during the interview I had with him and Webster in the music room last
Sunday morning--when, in fact, something dangerous to him came up. He
did it again when I was talking to him in his office, following a visit
from Mrs. Brace.

"There you have the beginning of my suspicion. Why had he gone out of
his way to put a cigar stump into his pocket that night, and to explain
that he had had it in his mouth all the time? When he came into my room,
to wake me up, he had no cigar in his mouth. But, when you and I rounded
the corner of the porch and first saw him kneeling over the body, he had
one hand in his right-hand coat-pocket. And, when we stood beside him,
he had put a half-smoked, unlit cigar into his mouth.

"You see my point, clearly? Instead of having had the cigar in his mouth
and having kept it there while he found the body and reported the
discovery to us, the truth is this: he had fubbed out the cigar when he
met Mildred Brace on the lawn, and it had occurred to his calculating
mind that it would be well, when he chose to give the alarm, to use the
cigar stunt as evidence that he hadn't been engaged in quarrelling with
and murdering a woman.

"He was right in his opinion that the average man doesn't go on calmly
smoking while engaged in such activities. He was wrong in letting us
discover where he'd carried the stump until he needed it.

"He had put it into that pocket, but, after committing the murder, he
wasn't quite as calm as he'd expected to be--something had gone wrong;
Webster had appeared on the scene--and the cigar wasn't restored to his
mouth until you and I first reached the body.

"Here's my handkerchief, showing the ashes and the pieces of cigar
tobacco on it, just as it was when he handed it back to me."

He took from one of his pockets a tissue-paper parcel, and, unwrapping
it, handed it to Sloane.

"Ah-h-h-that's what it shows," Sloane admitted, bending over the
handkerchief.

Wilton welcomed that with a laugh which he meant to be lightly
contemptuous.

"See here, Arthur!" he objected. "I'm perfectly willing to listen to any
sane statement this man may make, but----"

"You said you wanted to hear this!" Hasting stopped him. "I'm fair about
it. I've told you why I began to watch you. I've got more."

"You need it," Sloane complained. "If it's all that thin----"

"Don't shout too soon," Hastings interrupted ag