Like lightning, while he was talking, the memory of everything connected with the visit Pharos had paid me flashed across my mind. I glanced involuntarily toward that part of the room where the mummy had hitherto stood. To my amazement--I might almost say to my consternation--it was no longer there. What had become of it? Could Pharos, after disposing of me as he had done, have stolen it and transported it away? It seemed impossible, and yet I had the best of evidence before me that it was no longer there. And then another question: had Pharos had any connection with the murder? The time at which it was supposed to have been committed, between midnight and one o'clock, was precisely that at which he had made his appearance before me. And yet what reason had I, but my own terrible suspicions, to lead me to the conclusion that he was the author of this fiendish bit of work? I saw, however, that my continued silence was impressing the inspector unfavourably. "Come, sir," he said, this time a little more sharply than before, "I must remind you that my time is valuable. Am I to understand that you are in a position to help me, or not?" God knows, if I had been my own master I should have instantly loosed my tongue and revealed all I knew. I should have told him under what terrible circumstances I had met Pharos on the Embankment that wet night toward the end of March, and have commented on his inhuman conduct on that occasion. I should have informed him of the appearance the other had made in my studio early this morning, not only with a frightened look in his eyes, but breathing heavily, as though he had been running, a thing which would have seemed impossible in a man of his years. Then I should have gone on to tell how he had attempted to induce me to part with something upon which I placed considerable value, and, being disappointed, had hypnotised me and made off with the article in question. All this, as I say, I should have narrated had I been my own master. But God knows I was not. An irresistible force was at work within me, compelling me, even against my will, to screen him, and to tell the first deliberate lie to which, I think, I had ever given utterance in my life. It is a poor excuse to offer, and I am aware that a world so censorious as our own will not, in all probability, believed this statement, but upon my hopes of forgiveness at the Last Great Day, at that dread moment when the sins of all men shall be judged and punishment awarded, I declare it to be true in every single particular: and what is more, I further say that even if my life depended on it I could not have done otherwise. Though it has taken some time to place these thoughts on paper, the interval that elapsed between the inspector's last question and my answer, which seemed to me so halting and suspicious, to the effect that I had neither seen nor heard anything of the man he wanted, was scarcely more than a few seconds.