Bruge glanced up in amazement. "Why, so it is," he remarked wonderingly--"the very dagger. I remember now that I read the description given of this in the newspaper report of the inquest at Hythe. H'm! So that is how I fancied that I had seen it before." He balanced the knife on the palm of his hand. "A very good piece of description it must have been to so enable me to recognise this. But you," he glanced suspiciously at Prelice, "how did you know?" The young man shrugged his square shoulders. "That is easily explained," he replied suavely. "I went to hear the case at the New Bailey to-day, as I thought that my friend here," he again pressed Shepworth's shoulder significantly, "was to speak in defence of Miss Chent. At the Court I heard the knife described. It is quite simple, you see." "I wonder how it comes to be here?" mused Bruge, nodding acquiescence to this lucid explanation. "Odd, isn't it?" "Not at all," rejoined Prelice easily; "the assassin of Sir Oliver Lanwin brought it here to kill Agstone." "But Miss Chent is in prison," remonstrated the Inspector; "she could not have----" "She never did in any case," interrupted Shepworth faintly, but rousing himself sufficiently to defend his promised wife. "She is innocent." "It is natural that you should say so," remarked Bruge, with polite scepticism, then added significantly: "Did you expect Agstone?" Shepworth's eyebrows went up wearily. "I? No! Why should I have expected a witness for the prosecution to call upon me? I have told you all that happened until I entirely lost my senses. The first I saw of Agstone was when he crawled from under that table. Then the smoke had rendered me, not unconscious, but unable to speak or move." "Can this smoke you mention, do that?" "I speak from experience, Mr. Inspector; and Miss Chent, if you remember, told the same story." "Oh, I see that the two crimes are connected," said Bruge hastily. "The circumstances are the same as regards this mysterious smoke and its curious power. But you say," he added, turning to Prelice, "you say, my lord, that the assassin of Sir Oliver brought the knife to kill Agstone. Yet we see," he waved his hands towards the corpse, "that Agstone himself is a victim." "Quite so; but he may have brought the knife for all that." "Then you imply that Agstone murdered his master?" "I imply nothing," retorted the young man restively; "but the knife could not have got here unless someone brought it, and as it was missing from the Lanwin Grange library, only the murderer who used it could have possessed it. Moreover," Prelice pressed Shepworth's shoulder to make him particularly note the next sentence, "moreover, Mr. Shepworth saw the knife in Agstone's hand." Bruge wheeled swiftly towards the barrister. "You did not say that?"