Garvington started, his color changed and he stole a queer look at the impassive face of his cousin. "The pistol which the golden rye gave me?" he repeated slowly and weighing the words. "Did you give me one, Noel?" "I gave you a couple in a case," answered Lambert without mentioning the date of the present. "And if this bullet fits the one you used--" "It will prove nothing," interrupted the other hurriedly, and with a restless movement. "I fired from the doorstep, and my bullet, after breaking Pine's arm, must have vanished into the beyond. The shot which killed him was fired from the shrubbery, and, it is quite easy to guess how it passed through him and buried itself in the tree which was in the line of fire." "I want to see the pistols," said Lambert insistently, and this time Chaldea looked at him, wondering why he was so anxious to condemn himself. "Oh, very well," snapped Garvington, with some reluctance, and walked toward the door. There he paused, and evidently awaited to arrive at some conclusion, the nature of which his cousin could not guess. "Oh, very well," he said again, and left the room. "He thinks that you are a fool, as I do, my Gorgious," said Chaldea scornfully. "You wish to hang yourself it seems, my rye." "Oh, I don't think that I shall be the one to be hanged. Tell me, Chaldea, do you really believe that I am guilty?" "Yes," said the girl positively. "And if you had married me I should have saved you." Lambert laughed, but was saved the trouble of a reply by the return of Garvington, who trotted in to lay a mahogany case on the table. Opening this, he took out a small revolver of beautiful workmanship. Chaldea, desperately anxious to bring home the crime to Lambert, hastily snatched the weapon from the little man's hand and slipped the bullet into one of the chambers. It fitted--making allowance for its battered condition--precisely. She uttered a cry of triumph. "So you did shoot the Romany, my bold one," was her victorious speech. "Because the bullet fits the barrel of a revolver I gave to my cousin some twelve months ago?" he inquired, smiling. Chaldea's face fell. "Twelve months ago!" she echoed, greatly disappointed. "Yes, as Lord Garvington can swear to. So I could not have used the weapon on that night, you see." "I used it," admitted Garvington readily enough. "And winged Pine." "Exactly. But I gave you a brace of revolvers of the same make. The bullet which would fit one--as it does--would fit the other. I see there is only one in the case. Where is the other?" Garvington's color changed and he shuffled with his feet. "I lent it to Silver," he said in a low voice, and reluctantly. "Was it in Silver's possession on the night Pine was shot?" "Must have been. He borrowed it a week before because he feared burglars." "Then," said Lambert coolly, and drawing a breath of relief, for the tension had been great, "the inference is obvious. Silver shot Hubert Pine." CHAPTER XVIII.