“Hardly. What we want to know just now is, how you account for these stains upon Miss Moore’s cloak.” “I know nothing at all about it.” “They are not the results of your cousin’s bleeding at the nose?” “----you, Symonds!” “Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. That’s scarcely a matter which is likely to come within your province. You must take us for a pair of really remarkable simpletons, Gray and I, to wish us to believe that you know so much about the one thing and nothing at all about the other. It is odd.” “As you please. I have admitted my guilt If you decline to arrest me, I certainly shouldn’t be the one to grumble.” “You shouldn’t be, but it seems that you are. Tell us the story of these stains. It may be that the explanation will make your guilt clear. Then we’ll arrest you with the greatest pleasure.” I thought about what Hume had said about the advisability of concocting a plausible story which could hold water. I wished heartily that I had availed myself of his assistance to frame one there and then. I am one of the worst liars living. More than once, when the situation could have been saved by a lie, I have made a mess of things. I am without the knack which some men have; no one would mistake a lie of mine for truth. I felt that the two officers were watching me, with keenly observant eyes, incredulity written large all over them. I was conscious that I must say something. If Hume had only been there to prompt me! Bracing myself together, I made a plunge. “I will tell you everything. I’ll keep back nothing. What would be the use? You’d be sure to find out.” “Quite so.” “She saw me kill him. She tried to save him. She rushed forward, as he fell back into her arms, so that his life’s blood dyed her cloak.” “That was the way of it--as he fell back. From the position in which he was found, the idea was that he fell forward.” “Well, it might have been forward. I--I was hardly in a state of mind to pay close attention to every detail.” “With what did you kill him?” “With--with a knife which I brought home with me from a tribe of negroes on the West Coast of Africa.” “Might I see the weapon?” I had an armoury of such things, but was conscious that there was nothing among them which could have been responsible for the injuries which had been inflicted on Edwin Lawrence. “I haven’t it. I took it out with me just now, and--threw it into the river.” “That’s unfortunate. Because, apart from anything else, it must have been a truly extraordinary weapon--worth looking at, since the doctors were under the impression that at least fifty knives were used, of varying sizes.” “My knife had several blades.” “Is that so? All of the same length?” “All lengths.” “But fitted into one handle?” “Yes; but it was a peculiar handle.”