“You will have an opportunity of doing so in the witness-box. Though I warn you to consider what are the pains and penalties of committing perjury, because I shall bring trustworthy witnesses who will prove not only that she wore this cloak, but that the fact of her wearing it was well within your knowledge.” He began to roll it up. “You are not going to take it away, Symonds--my cousin’s property.” “Your cousin’s property! Listen to me, Mr. Ferguson. I’m told that you’ve lived a good deal abroad. I don’t know what may be the manners and customs in those parts, but I can assure you that, at home, you cannot do a more serious disservice to a person suspected of crime than to resist, on his or her behalf, due process of law. And I may add that, in the eyes of judge and jury, a prisoner is not assisted by the discovery that a witness has been endeavouring to bolster up his or her cause by swearing to a series of unmistakable falsehoods. I know that Miss Bessie Moore was wearing a cloak when she went to see Mr. Edwin Lawrence. Mrs. Peddar says that she had on nothing of the kind when you hid her in her apartment. What has become of it? In the interval, between her leaving Lawrence and going up to Mrs. Peddar, she was in your room. I search your room. In it I discover the cloak which Miss Moore has been described as wearing. You will do that lady a very serious injury by endeavouring to persuade me, or anybody else, that this garment is the property of a suppositious cousin, who never existed except in your imagination.” As he continued to speak in his measured, emotionless tones, I felt as if something was being drawn tighter about my throat; something against which it was vain to struggle. I endeavoured to collect my thoughts. But, somehow, all at once, I had grown stupid; more stupid, even, than I was wont to be. I could not get my ideas into proper order. They eluded me. My brain was in confusion. I could not see what was the wisest thing to do. I came to a desperate resolve, which I put into execution with sufficient clumsiness. “You’re on the wrong tack, Mr. Symonds.” “I’ve not said what tack I am on.” “You police are famous for your blunders. I’ll save you from making another.” “That’s kind.” “I killed Edwin Lawrence.” They looked at me, then at each other, smiling. The inspector’s colleague gave a short, dry laugh. “It’s a little too thin,” he said. “I repeat that I killed Edwin Lawrence.” The inspector gazed at me with twinkling eyes. “What do you propose to gain by that?” “Gain? Nothing; except, I suppose, the gallows. But I don’t care. Life has no longer any charms for me, with this--this upon my soul. His blood is on my hands. I admit it.” “With a view, I presume, to getting his blood off the hands of somebody else, eh?” “What on earth do you mean? You seem to be some sort of monomaniac--possessed with but one idea. I tell you that I am the man’s murderer. You can take your prisoner. And there’s an end of it.”