"You delightful person, Mr. Dodwell." The interruption came from Frank Clifford. "Mixed up with it was the feeling that Beaton was in the room. Then, I suppose, I lost consciousness. When I came to myself again I couldn't make out what had happened, or where I was. Then by degrees I began to understand that I was in bed, in a strange room, and that Beaton was leaning over me. 'Why, Syd!' I said--it wasn't a very brilliant remark to make, but I remember that I did make it. What he said I don't know, I fancy I must have slipped back into unconsciousness again. To make a long story short, when I did come really to myself again, I found that I was in Beaton's rooms." "But how on earth did you get there?" demanded Major Reith. "When I last saw you I could have sworn that you were lying dead on the floor of that room at Avonham. Directly my back was turned, did you get up and walk to Beaton's rooms?" "That's a part of the story with which I'm not very well posted. It wasn't only imagination when, while Dodwell was clubbing me, I felt that Beaton had come into the room; he had, and Dodwell had seen him--and he saw what Dodwell was doing to me. He will be able to bear witness to that part of my story, as Dodwell is probably aware." Suddenly, it seemed, that Mr. Dodwell had decided to take up a new position as regarded the last part of Noel Draycott's story. "I don't deny that I did strike him, I never have denied it, but what I did was only done in self-defence." "While a man was lying on the floor you struck him, with a club, in self-defence?" "He had been threatening me, and telling all sorts of lies, and I was half beside myself with rage, and I meant to give him the thrashing he deserved, and if I went a little too far it was because I had been drinking, as he had, and was mad with fury, and didn't know what I was doing--and there you are." "And all this time the world has been wondering what became of Draycott, and you never so much as hinted that you knew." "I didn't know; I was just as much in the dark as anyone--I wondered." "You thought you had killed him?" Dodwell was silent; Clifford went on. "You thought you had killed him, and that was why you never said a word." "I knew I hadn't killed him." "How did you know?" "If I had he'd have been where I left him; he wouldn't have got up and walked away." "It didn't occur to you that what you had done to him that night had anything to do with his disappearance?" "I don't know what you mean." "You didn't think it advisable, or necessary, to come forward and throw some sort of light on what seemed an insoluble mystery by telling your story of what took place that night?" "I wished to avoid a scandal." "What a thoughtful man you are, Mr. Dodwell! It did not occur to you, I suppose, that if you did tell your story you'd be in the hands of the police immediately after--that had nothing to do with your silence?"