t first he didn't
believe I had killed my cousin, and presently he seemed to believe
it. When I got out in the street the sidewalk lurched under my feet
like the deck of a ship; everything swam before me. I don't know how
I managed to reach this house, and I don't know how long I had been
sitting in a room up-stairs when the recollection of the subpoena
occurred to me. I was standing here dazed with despair; I saw that I
was somehow caught in the toils, and that it was going to be
impossible to prove my innocence. If another man had been in my
position, I should have believed him guilty. I stood looking at the
cask in the corner there, scarcely conscious of it; then I noticed
the blue paint on the head, and then William Durgin's testimony
flashed across my mind. Where is he?" cried Richard, turning swiftly.
"That man should be arrested!"

"I am afraid he is gone," said Mr. Taggett, biting his lip.

"Do you mean he has fled?"

"If you are correct--he has fled. He failed to answer the summons
to-day, and the constable sent to look him up has been unable to find
him. Durgin was in the bar-room of the tavern at eight o'clock last
night; he has not been seen since."

"He was not in the yard this morning. You have let him slip
through your fingers."

"So it appears, for the moment."

"You still doubt me, Mr. Taggett?"

"I don't let persons slip through my fingers."

Richard curbed an impatient rejoinder, and said quietly, "William
Durgin had an accomplice."

Mr. Taggett flushed, as if Richard had read his secret thought.
Durgin's flight, if he really had fled, had suggested a fresh
possibility to Mr. Taggett. What if Durgin were merely the pliant
instrument of the cleverer man who was now using him as a shield?
This reflection was precisely in Mr. Taggett's line. In absconding
Durgin had not only secured his own personal safety, but had
exonerated his accomplice. It was a desperate step to take, but it
was a skillful one.

"He had an accomplice?" repeated Mr. Taggett, after a moment. "Who
was it?"

"Torrini!"

"The man who was hurt the other day?"

"Yes."

"You have grounds for your assertion?"

"He and Durgin were intimate, and have been much together lately.
I sat up with Torrini the night before last; he acted and talked very
strangely; the man was out of his head part of the time, but now, as
I think it over, I am convinced that he had this matter on his mind,
and was hinting at it. I believe he wou