e on the night of the 25th June, two
years ago?"

"Yes," said Sir Anthony. "And do you know why? Because I know you to be
a liar and a scoundrel."

I can never describe the awful horror that numbed me to the heart. For
a few moments my body seemed as lifeless as my legs. The charge,
astounding almost to grotesqueness in the eyes of Sir Anthony, and
rousing him to mere wrath, deprived me of the power of speech. For I
knew, in that dreadful instant, that the man's words contained some
elements of truth.

All the pieces of the puzzle that had worried me at odd times for
months fitted themselves together in a vivid flash. Boyce and Althea! I
had never dreamed of associating their names. That association was the
key of the puzzle. Out of the darkness disturbing things shone clear.
Boyce's abrupt retirement from Wellingsford before the war; his
cancellation by default of his engagement; his morbid desire, a year
ago, to keep secret his presence in his own house; Gedge's veiled
threat to me in the street to use a way "that'll knock all you great
people of Wellingsford off your high horses;" his extraordinary
interview with Boyce; his generally expressed hatred of Boyce. Was this
too the secret which he let out in his cups to Randall Holmes and which
drove the young man from his society? And Betty? Boyce was a devil. She
wished he were dead. And her words: "You have behaved worse to others.
I don't wonder at your shrinking from showing your face here." How much
did Betty know? There was the lost week--in Carlisle?--in poor Althea's
life. And then there were Boyce's half confessions, the glimpses he had
afforded me into the tormented soul. To me he had condemned himself out
of his own mouth.

I repeat that, sitting there paralysed by the sudden shock of it, I
knew--not that the man was speaking the literal truth--God forbid!--but
that Boyce was, in some degree, responsible for Althea's death.

"Calling me names won't alter the facts, Sir Anthony," said Gedge, with
a touch of insolence. "I was there at the time. I saw it."

"If that's true," Sir Anthony retorted, "you're an accessory after the
fact, and in greater danger of being hanged than ever." He turned to me
in his abrupt way. "Now that we've heard this blackguard, shall we hand
him over to the police?"

Being directly addressed, I recovered my nerve.

"Before doing that," said I, "perhaps it would be best for us to hear
what kind of a story he has to tell us. We