ulkner is dead."

"I think, gentlemen," the chief constable said quietly, "that after you
have heard what I have to tell, you will have to withdraw the warrant
altogether."

"Eh! what? Do you mean to say, Henderson, that you think the young
fellow did not fire the shot after all? I would give a hundred pounds if
I could think so, but, with Faulkner's deposition before us, I don't see
how there can be any possible doubt in the matter. Besides, I was
present when he gave it, and though it may have been coloured a good
deal by his feeling against young Wyatt, I am convinced that he
believed, at any rate, that he was speaking the truth."

"I have no doubt he did, sir, and I had no more doubt than you have as
to Mr. Wyatt's guilt; indeed, until his brother pointed out one very
important fact, nothing would have persuaded me that he did not fire the
shot. I don't say that it was at all conclusive, but it sufficed to show
that the matter was by no means so certain as it seemed to be. I found
him at the house when I went there to arrest his brother. Of course, the
young fellow was greatly shocked when I told him the nature of the
charge, and declared it to be absolutely impossible. So certain was he,
that even when I told him the nature of Mr. Faulkner's depositions, he
was more puzzled than alarmed. The first question he asked was whether
Mr. Faulkner had been killed by shot or by a ball. When I said by a ball
his face cleared up altogether. His brother, he said, and as we know,
had been rabbit-shooting at Mr. Merryweather's. He would have had small
shot with him, but young Wyatt said that he did not think his brother
had ever fired a bullet in his life. He knew there was not such a thing
as a bullet in the house. Mr. Wyatt could not possibly have known that
he was likely to meet Mr. Faulkner on his way back from shooting, and
therefore, unless upon the rather improbable theory that he went about
with the intention of shooting Mr. Faulkner whenever he met him, and
that he had bought a bullet in the town and carried it always about with
him for the purpose, it was clear that he could not have fired that
shot."

"There is something in that, Mr. Henderson. A good deal in it, I am
ready to admit, but nothing that would really counteract the effect of
Faulkner's direct testimony, given when he knew that he was dying."

"No, sir; still it is a point that I own I had entirely overlooked;
however, that is not now so important. I