y to accrue to you
from defending me."

"I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in it,"
he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. "But I
should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown that
her call for help came before you entered the building."

"That would be the best defence possible, of course," I replied; "but
neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no
proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left
the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house
clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I know
and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building prior
to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very long,
since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated cushions,
but in a room some little distance from the telephone."

"That will do for me," said he, "but scarcely for those who are
prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your guilt.
The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the station
looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at the
club-house."

It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been
burned off.[1]

[Footnote :1 It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:

_"Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done.
Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry any
one but you."_

It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of
affection linked to Carmel's name which had been in my mind and awakened
my keenest apprehension.]

"Otherwise," he pursued, "what could have taken her there? Everybody who
knew her will ask that. Such a night! so soon after seeing you! It is a
mystery any way, but one entirely inconceivable without some such excuse
for her. These lines said 'Come!' and she went, for reasons which may be
clear to you who were acquainted with her weak as well as strong points.
Went how? No one knows. By chance or by intention on her part or yours,
every servant was out of the house by nine o'clock, and her brother, too.
Only the sister remained, the sister whom you profess to have urged to
leave the town with you that very evening; and she can tell us
nothing,--may die without ever being able to do so. Some shock to her
feelings--you may know its character and yo