"I am speaking the truth," Craige retorted. "Many's the person I've brought over here when you, Kitty, were not around, and your aunt has admitted us at that side door. She charged high rates of interest, but no one gave her away. She was square with them." "Were you square with her?" asked Rodgers quietly, and a dull red suffused Craige's white face. "When I had to borrow, she treated me like the others," he answered. "The fact that I helped her amass a fortune cut no ice. I got deeper and deeper in debt, and then--" his voice changed. "I had to have money, so I told her I wanted to marry you." Kitty retreated, aghast. "Marry me? _You!_" "Yes," coolly. "I am only fifty-four; there is not such a difference in our ages. I saw your aunt on Sunday about six o'clock. She laughed at me and refused to consent to our marriage." Beads of perspiration had again gathered on his forehead, but he went steadily on with his story, oblivious apparently of the abhorrence with which his companions were regarding him. "I had forged Miss Susan Baird's name in my desperation last week. I knew that if Kitty and I were married quickly, she would keep quiet about the forgery for her family's sake. When she laughed my plan to scorn, I realized there was only one thing to do--to kill her." "How did you go about it?" asked Mitchell. It was some seconds before Craige answered. "I went prepared for failure," he admitted. "I could not face ruin--perhaps the penitentiary for forgery. My father was a famous expert in toxicology and," he moistened his lips--"I often worked in his laboratory," with a side glance at the bulb syringe still lying where it had fallen on the floor. "I at first planned to squeeze some poison in her tea cup, but got no chance. Then Miss Baird asked me to peel a peach for her. I don't know where the peaches came from, but there were three in a dish on the table. Before cutting the peach in two, I sprayed some hydrocyanic acid on the knife-blade when Miss Baird was not looking, holding the knife just over the edge of the table and the bulb in my left hand, out of sight in my lap." "It was devilishly ingenious," commented Mitchell. "Well, did you steal the forged paper after killing the old lady?" "No." Craige looked at Kitty with a faint sneer. "It was among those canceled checks from the bank which you so obligingly left in your desk yesterday alongside your revolver. I stole them both last night." "Last night?" Kitty looked at him in astonishment. "Why, we found you at home last night, Ted and I. We telephoned you first that we were coming and--"