“A knowledge of what went on in Mrs. Clemmens’ house before he went to it would be of great help to us. With that for a start, all may be learned. I therefore put it to you for the last time whether it would not be best for you to explain yourself on this point. I am sure you will not regret it.”
“Sir,” said Mansell, with undisturbed composure, “if your purpose is to fix this crime on Mr. Orcutt, I must insist upon your taking my word that I have no information to give you that can in any way affect him.”
“You could give us information, then, that would affect Miss Dare?” was the quick retort. “Now, I say,” the astute detective declared, as the prisoner gave an almost imperceptible start, “that whatever your information is, Miss Dare is not guilty.”
“You say it!” exclaimed the prisoner. “What does your opinion amount to if you haven’t heard the evidence against her?”
“There is no evidence against her but what is purely circumstantial.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she is innocent. Circumstantial evidence may exist alike against the innocent and the guilty; real evidence only against the guilty. I mean to say that as I am firmly convinced Miss Dare once regarded you as guilty of this crime, I must be equally convinced she didn’t commit it herself. This is unanswerable.”
“You have stated that before.”
“I know it; but I want you to see the force of it; because, once convinced with me that Miss Dare is innocent, you will be willing to tell all you know, even what apparently implicates her.”
Silence answered this remark.
“You didn’t see her strike the blow?”
Mansell roused indignantly.
“No, of course not!” he cried.
“You did not see her with your aunt that moment you fled from the house immediately before the murder!”
“I didn’t see her.”
That emphasis, unconscious, perhaps, was fatal. Gryce, who never lost anything, darted on this small gleam of advantage as a hungry pike darts upon an innocent minnow.
“But you thought you heard her,” he cried; “her voice, or her laugh, or perhaps merely the rustle of her dress in another room?”
“No,” said Mansell, “I didn’t hear her.”
“Of course not,” was the instantaneous reply. “But something said or done by somebody—a something which amounts to nothing as evidence—gives you to understand she was there, and so you hold your tongue for fear of compromising her.”
“Amounts to nothing as evidence?” echoed Mansell. “How do you know that?”
“Because Miss Dare was not in the house with your aunt at that time. Miss Dare was in Professor Darling’s observatory, a mile or so away.”
“Does she say that?”
“We will prove that.”
Aroused, excited, the prisoner turned his flashing blue eyes on the detective.
“I should be glad to have you,” he said.
“But you must first tell me in what room you were when you received this intimation of Miss Dare’s presence?”
“I was in no room; I was on the stone step outside of the dining-room door. I did not go into the house at all that morning, as I believe I have already told Mr. Ferris.”
“Very good! It will all be simpler than I thought. You came up to the house and went away again without coming in; ran away, I may say, taking the direction of the swamp.”
The prisoner did not deny it.
“You remember all the incidents of that short flight?”
The prisoner’s lip curled.
“Remember leaping the fence and stumbling a trifle when you came down?”
“Yes.”
“Very well; now tell me how could Miss Dare see you do that from Mrs. Clemmens’ house?”
“Did Miss Dare tell you she saw me trip after I jumped the fence?”
“She did.”
“And yet was in Professor Darling’s observatory, a mile or so away?”
“Yes.”
A satirical laugh broke from the prisoner.
“I think,” said he, “that instead of my telling you how she could have seen this from Mrs. Clemmens’ house, you should tell me how she could have seen it from Professor Darling’s observatory.”
“That is easy enough. She was looking through a telescope.”
“What?”
“At the moment you were turning from Mrs. Clemmens’ door, Miss Dare, perched in the top of Professor Darling’s house, was looking in that very direction through a telescope.”
“I—I would like to believe that story,” said the prisoner, with suppressed emotion. “It would—”
“What?” urged the detective, calmly.
“Make a new man of me,” finished Mansell, with a momentary burst of feeling.
“Well, then, call up your memories of the way your aunt’s house is situated. Recall the hour, and acknowledge that, if Miss Dare was with her, she must have been in the dining-room.”
“There is no doubt about that.”
“Now, how many windows has the dining-room?”
“One.”
“How situated?”
“It is on the same side as the door.”
“There is none, then, which looks down to that place where you leaped the fence?”
“No.”
“How account for her seeing that little incident, then, of your stumbling?”
“She might have come to the door, stepped out, and so seen me.”
“Humph! I see you have an answer for everything.”
Craik Mansell was silent.
A look of admiration slowly spread itself over the detective’s face.
“We must probe the matter a little deeper,” said he. “I see I have a hard head to deal with.” And, bringing his glance a little nearer to the prisoner, he remarked:
“If she had been standing there you could not have turned round without seeing her?”
“No.”
“Now, did you see her standing there?”
“No.”
“Yet you turned round?”
“I did?”
“Miss Dare says so.”
The prisoner struck his forehead with his hand.
“And it is so,” he cried. “I remember now that some vague desire to know
