LIFTS THE VEIL. The man under arrest was not, as I had expected, John Parham--but Eric Domville! I stood glaring at him, utterly staggered. Then I sprang forward to greet him--to welcome him as one returned from the grave, but next instant drew back. His face was changed--the expression upon it was that of terror--and of guilt! "You are arrested," continued Pickering, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, adding that phrase of patter which is spoken each time a person is taken into custody, "and I warn you that whatever statement you may now make will be taken down in writing and used in evidence against you at your trial." "I have no statement to make. I can do that later," faltered the unhappy man whom I had, until that moment, regarded as my warmest friend. The revelation struck me of a heap. At first I was unable to realise that I was awake, and in my right senses, yet there Domville stood, with a detective on either side of him, crushed and resistless. He had not even denied the truth of Pickering's awful allegation. Certainly in no man had I been more deceived them in him. I had given him hospitality; I had confided my secrets in him because we had been friends ever since our youth. Indeed, he had assisted me to shield Sybil, and yet the police had charged him with implication in the grim tragedies that had undoubtedly been enacted within those silent walls where we now stood. "Is this true, Domville?" I cried at last, when I found tongue. "Speak." "True!" he echoed, with a strange, sickly smile, but in a low, hoarse tone. "The police are fools. Let them do as they like. They'll soon find out that they've got hold of the wrong man. You surely know me well enough, Wilfrid, not to believe these fellows without proof." "Yes," I cried, "I do, Eric. I believe you are innocent, and I'll help you to prove it." Pickering smiled, saying, "At present, Mr Hughes, we must send this gentleman round to the station. We may discuss his innocence later on." Then turning to Edwards he said in quick, peremptory tones, "Get a cab, you and Marvin, and take him round to the station. Then come back here. Tell Inspector Nicholls that I'll charge him myself when I come round." "Yes, sir," replied the man, and ten minutes later the prisoner and the two detectives drove off in a four-wheeled cab. "Pardon me, Mr Hughes," said Pickering, after he had gone, "but is it not injudicious to presuppose that man's innocence, especially when guilt is so plainly written on his face? Some men's faces are to us as open as the columns of a newspaper. That man's is. He is guilty--he is one of the gang. What proof have you that he is not?" "He is my friend," I protested.