“There's a flaw in almost every case that depends purely on circumstantial evidence, squire; and one can never guess how big that flaw is till one has the whole of the evidence together. It's safest to wait for all the evidence before publishing any conclusions; that's what I always bear in mind. Mistakes don't matter much, so long as you keep them to yourself and don't mislead other people with them.” He turned to Armadale, who was still in deep cogitation. “I'm going up to town this afternoon, inspector, to look into that end of the Fordingbridge business. In the meantime, I want you to do two things for me.” “Very good, sir,” said the inspector, waking up. “First of all, put all that sand-heap we've collected through fairly fine sieves, and see that you don't miss a .38 cartridge-case if it happens to be there. Quite likely it may not be; but I want it, if it should chance to turn up.” “So _that's_ what you were looking for all the time?” Wendover demanded. “I must say, Clinton, you came as near lying over that as I've known. You said you were looking for shells, or the brass bottle with the genie in it; and you insisted you were telling the truth, too; and that makes it more misleading still.” “Not a bit of it, squire. I told you the plain truth; and if you take the wrong meaning out of my words, whose blame is it? Did you never hear an American use the word ‘shell’ for an empty cartridge-case? And the genie's brass bottle, too. Could you find a neater description of a cartridge-case than that? Didn't the genie come out in vapour, and expand till no one would have supposed he could ever have been in the brass bottle? And when you fire a cartridge, doesn't the gas come out—far more of it than you'd ever suppose could be compressed into the size of the cartridge? And wasn't the genie going to kill a man—same as a pistol cartridge might do? I really believed that I'd produced a poetical description of a cartridge-case which would be fit to stand alongside some of Shakespeare's best efforts; and all you can say about it was that it misled you! Well, well! It's sad.” Wendover, now that he saw the true interpretation, could hardly protest further. He had to admit the ingenuity which had served to mislead him. “Then there's another thing, inspector, which is much more important. You'll go at once to a magistrate and swear information against Mrs. Fleetwood on a charge of murder, and you'll get a warrant for her arrest. That's to be done immediately, you understand. You'll hold that warrant ready for execution; but you won't actually arrest her until I wire to you: ‘Take Fleetwood boat on Thursday.’ As soon as you get that message, you'll execute the warrant without any delay whatsoever. That's vital, you understand? And, of course, there mustn't be a whisper about this until the moment of the arrest.”