"This is no mere resemblance," he said. "It is John Dwerrihouse's cigar-case to a certainty. I remember it perfectly; I have seen it a hundred times." "I believe I may say the same," added the chairman; "yet how account for the way in which Mr. Langford asserts that it came into his possession?" "I can only repeat," I replied, "that I found it on the floor of the carriage after Mr. Dwerrihouse had alighted. It was in leaning out to look after him that I trod upon it, and it was in running after him for the purpose of restoring it that I saw or believed I saw, Mr. Raikes standing aside with him in earnest conversation." Again I felt Jonathan Jelf plucking at my sleeve. "Look at Raikes," he whispered; "look at Raikes!" I turned to where the under-secretary had been standing a moment before, and saw him, white as death, with lips trembling and livid, stealing toward the door. To conceive a sudden, strange, and indefinite suspicion, to fling myself in his way, to take him by the shoulders as if he were a child, and turn his craven face, perforce, toward the board, were with me the work of an instant. "Look at him!" I exclaimed. "Look at his face! I ask no better witness to the truth of my words." The chairman's brow darkened. "Mr. Raikes," he said, sternly, "if you know anything you had better speak." Vainly trying to wrench himself from my grasp, the under-secretary stammered out an incoherent denial. "Let me go," he said. "I know nothing--you have no right to detain me--let me go!" "Did you, or did you not, meet Mr. John Dwerrihouse at Blackwater station? The charge brought against you is either true or false. If true, you will do well to throw yourself upon the mercy of the board and make full confession of all that you know." The under-secretary wrung his hands in an agony of helpless terror. "I was away!" he cried. "I was two hundred miles away at the time! I know nothing about it--I have nothing to confess--I am innocent--I call God to witness I am innocent!" "Two hundred miles away!" echoed the chairman. "What do you mean?" "I was in Devonshire. I had three weeks' leave of absence--I appeal to Mr. Hunter--Mr. Hunter knows I had three weeks' leave of absence! I was in Devonshire all the time; I can prove I was in Devonshire!" Seeing him so abject, so incoherent, so wild with apprehension, the directors began to whisper gravely among themselves, while one got quietly up and called the porter to guard the door. "What has your being in Devonshire to do with the matter?" said the chairman. "When were you in Devonshire?" "Mr. Raikes took his leave in September," said the secretary, "about the time when Mr. Dwerrihouse disappeared." "I never even heard that he had disappeared till I came back!"