you had had a
quarrel with the Marchese."

"I had no quarrel with him."

"I knew that. That you might be shielding someone occurred forcibly to
my mind. _But who?_"

Michael looked steadily at the official.

"And there was blood upon your hand and sleeve when you confessed."

"There was."

"It was not the Marchese's blood," said the Delegato, drawing a sallow
finger across a blue chin. "It remained a mystery. I will own that it
had not crossed my mind that that fragile and timid lady had killed her
husband, and that as she at last confesses you were shielding her." The
Delegato looked piercingly at Michael.

Michael was silent.

"You have always been silent. Is not the moment come to speak?"

Michael shook his head.

The Delegato bowed.

"I came to ask you to discuss the affair openly," he said, "to relieve
my perplexity as a matter of courtesy. But you will not speak. Then I
will speak instead. When first I read the Marchesa's confession it came
into my mind that the Marchesa, who I believe was your friend, might for
some reason, possibly the sentimental devotion of an older woman for a
young man--such things have been--that she _might_ have confessed on her
deathbed to a crime which she had not committed in order to save you
from--_this_"--he touched the wall of the cell. "I doubted that she
really murdered her husband. _But she did._ I sought out the maid who
had been with her when the Marchese died, and she, before the confession
was published, informed me that she had not undressed the Marchesa on
her return from the Colle Alto party. And that next morning part of the
cloak which was not hers, and part of her gown were found to be burnt as
stated in her confession. It was indeed necessary to burn them. The
Marchesa murdered the Marchese."

There was a long silence.

"I cannot tell whether you witnessed the crime or not. At first I
thought the blood on your hands and clothes might have come from helping
her to drag the body into the garden. But it was not so. At the time I
attached a great importance to the garden door being unlocked. Too
great. It led me astray. The gardener, in spite of his oath that he had
locked it, had probably left it unlocked. We now know from the Marchesa
that the murder took place within the garden, and the locking and
unlocking of the door was an accident which looked like a clue.... But,
if you witnessed the murder, and wished to retire without raising an
alarm, or deno