“You give me credit for a great deal of generosity,” coldly replied the prisoner. “After the evidence brought against me by the prosecution, I should think my guilt would be accepted as proved the moment I showed that I had not left Mrs. Clemmens’ house at the time she was believed to be murdered.”
“And so it would,” responded Mr. Gryce, “if the prosecution had not seen reason to believe that the moment of Mrs. Clemmens’ death has been put too early. We now think she was not struck till some time after twelve, instead of five minutes before.”
“Indeed?” said Mr. Mansell, with stern self-control.
Mr. Gryce, whose carelessly roving eye told little of the close study with which he was honoring the man before him, nodded with grave decision.
“You could add very much to our convictions on this point,” he observed, “by telling what it was you saw or heard in Mrs. Clemmens’ house at the moment you fled from it so abruptly.”
“How do you know I fled from it abruptly?”
“You were seen. The fact has not appeared in court, but a witness we might name perceived you flying from your aunt’s door to the swamp as if your life depended upon the speed you made.”
“And with that fact added to all the rest you have against me, you say you believe me innocent?” exclaimed Mr. Mansell.
“Yes; for I have also said I believe Mrs. Clemmens not to have been assaulted till after the hour of noon. You fled from the door at precisely five minutes before it.”
The uneasiness of Mr. Mansell’s face increased, till it amounted to agitation.
“And may I ask,” said he, “what has happened to make you believe she was not struck at the moment hitherto supposed?”
“Ah, now,” replied the detective, “we come down to facts.” And leaning with a confidential air toward the prisoner, he quietly said: “Your counsel has died, for one thing.”
Astonished as much by the tone as the tenor of these words, Mr. Mansell drew back from his visitor in some distrust. Seeing it, Mr. Gryce edged still farther forward, and calmly continued:
“If no one has told you the particulars of Mr. Orcutt’s death, you probably do not know why Miss Dare was at his house last evening?”
The look of the prisoner was sufficient reply.
“She went there,” resumed Mr. Gryce, with composure, “to tell him that her whole evidence against you had been given under the belief that you were guilty of the crime with which you had been charged; that by a trick of my fellow-detectives, Hickory and Byrd, she had been deceived into thinking you had actually admitted your guilt to her; and that she had only been undeceived after she had uttered the perjury with which she sought to save you yesterday morning.”
“Perjury?” escaped involuntarily from Craik Mansell’s lips.
“Yes,” repeated the detective, “perjury. Miss Dare lied when she said she had been to Mrs. Clemmens’ cottage on the morning of the murder. She was not there, nor did she lift her hand against the widow’s life. That tale she told to escape telling another which she thought would insure your doom.”
“You have been talking to Miss Dare?” suggested the prisoner, with subdued sarcasm.
“I have been talking to my two men,” was the unmoved retort, “to Hickory and to Byrd, and they not only confirm this statement of hers in regard to the deception they played upon her, but say enough to show she could not have been guilty of the crime, because at that time she honestly believed you to be so.”
“I do not understand you,” cried the prisoner, in a voice that, despite his marked self-control, showed the presence of genuine emotion.
Mr. Gryce at once went into particulars. He was anxious to have Craik Mansell’s mind disabused of the notion that Imogene had committed this crime, since upon that notion he believed his unfortunate reticence to rest. He therefore gave him a full relation of the scene in the hut, together with all its consequences.
Mr. Mansell listened like a man in a dream. Some fact in the past evidently made this story incredible to him.
Seeing it, Mr. Gryce did not wait to hear his comments, but upon finishing his account, exclaimed, with a confident air:
“Such testimony is conclusive. It is impossible to consider Miss Dare guilty, after an insight of this kind into the real state of her mind. Even she has seen the uselessness of persisting in her self-accusation, and, as I have already told you, went to Mr. Orcutt’s house in order to explain to him her past conduct, and ask his advice for the future. She learned something else before her interview with Mr. Orcutt ended,” continued the detective, impressively. “She learned that she had not only been mistaken in supposing you had admitted your guilt, but that you could not have been guilty, because you had always believed her to be so. It has been a mutual case of suspicion, you see, and argues innocence on the part of you both. Or so it seems to the prosecution. How does it seem to you?”
“Would it help my cause to say?”
“It would help your cause to tell what sent you so abruptly from Mrs. Clemmens’ house the morning she was murdered.”
“I do not see how,” returned the prisoner.
The glance of Mr. Gryce settled confidentially on his right hand where it lay outspread upon his ample knee.
“Mr. Mansell,” he inquired, “have you no curiosity to know any details of the accident by which you have unexpectedly been deprived of a counsel?”
Evidently surprised at this sudden change of subject, Craik replied:
“If I had not hoped you would understand my
