“Once I established that fact,” went on the other severely, “a real stumbling-block was removed. You see, Elkin, you have behaved throughout like a perfect fool, and thus lent a sort of credibility to an otherwise absurd notion. Your furious hatred of Mr. Grant, for instance, born of an equally fatuous—or, shall I say? fat-headed—belief that Miss Martin would marry you for the mere asking, led you into deep waters. It was a mistake, too, when you lied to P. C. Robinson as to the time you came home on that Monday night. You told him you walked straight here from the Hare and Hounds at ten o’clock. You know you didn’t—that it was nearer half past eleven when you reached this house. Consider what that discrepancy alone might have meant if Scotland Yard failed to take your measure correctly. Then add the fact that the murderer wore the hat, wig, and whiskers in which you made a guy of yourself while filling the rôle of Svengali last winter. Now, I ask you, Elkin, where would you have stood with the average British jury when the prosecution established those three things: Motive, your jealousy of Grant; time, your unaccounted-for disappearance during the hour when the crime was committed; and disguise, a clumsy suggestion of Owd Ben’s ghost? Really, I have known men brought to the scaffold on circumstantial evidence little stronger than that. Instead of glaring at me like a cornered rat you ought to drop on your knees and thank providence, as manifested through the intelligence of the ‘Yard,’ that you are not now in a cell at Knoleworth, ruminating on your own stupidity, and in no small jeopardy of your life.” Many emotions chased each other across Fred Elkin’s somewhat mean and cruel face while Furneaux rated him in this extraordinary manner. Surprise, wrath, even fear, had their phases. But, dominating all other sensations, was an overpowering indignation at the implied hopelessness of his pursuit of Doris Martin. He literally howled an oath at his torturer. Furneaux was shocked. “No, no,” he protested in a horrified tone. “Don’t swear at your best friend.” “Friend! By—, I’ll make you pay for what you’ve said. There’s a law to stop that sort of thing.”