ff my coil, which anybody could get at, and used it to
throw suspicion on me! That's the truth--and you'll find it out some
day, whatever happens now."

Mallalieu exchanged glances with the superintendent and then faced
Harborough squarely, with an air of inviting confidence.

"Now, my lad!" he said, almost coaxingly. "There's a very simple thing
to do, and it'll clear this up as far as you're concerned. Just answer a
plain question. Where ha' you been all night?"

A tense silence fell--broken by the crackling of the wood in the grate,
which the charwoman had at last succeeded in stirring into a blaze, and
by the rattling of the fire-irons which she now arranged in the fender.
Everybody was watching the suspected man, and nobody as keenly as
Brereton. And Brereton saw that a deadlock was at hand. A strange look
of obstinacy and hardness came into Harborough's eyes, and he shook his
head.

"No!" he answered. "I shan't say! The truth'll come out in good time
without that. It's not necessary for me to say. Where I was during the
night is my business--nobody else's."

"You'll not tell?" asked Mallalieu.

"I shan't tell," replied Harborough.

"You're in danger, you know," said Mallalieu.

"In your opinion," responded Harborough, doggedly. "Not in mine! There's
law in this country. You can arrest me, if you like--but you'll have
your work set to prove that I killed yon old man. No, sir! But----" here
he paused, and looking round him, laughed almost maliciously "--but I'll
tell you what I'll do," he went on. "I'll tell you this, if it'll do you
any good--if I liked to say the word, I could prove my innocence down to
the ground! There!"

"And you won't say that word?" asked Mallalieu.

"I shan't! Why? Because it's not necessary. Why!" demanded Harborough,
laughing with an expresssion of genuine contempt. "What is there against
me? Naught! As I say, there's law in this country--there's such a thing
as a jury. Do you believe that any jury would convict a man on what
you've got? It's utter nonsense!"

The constable who had come down from the Shawl with Bent and Brereton
had for some time been endeavouring to catch the eye of the
superintendent. Succeeding in his attempts at last, he beckoned that
official into a quiet corner of the room, and turning his back on the
group near the fireplace, pulled something out of his pocket. The two
men bent over it, and the constable began to talk in whispers.

Mallalieu meanwhile