another case," said Paul. "But please
remember I am here accused of murder. Do you know a woman named Mary
Bradshaw? She lives in Clough Street."

"I have heard of such a woman; yes."

"Your son was once very friendly with her. Had that woman no reason to
hate him?"

"That was years ago."

Paul asked many questions concerning this woman which I will not set
down here, because they were necessarily of a sordid nature, but which
went to prove that although in neither case could these people have had
anything to do with the murder, Ned Wilson was not universally beloved,
as his father had stated, but bitterly hated.

"You have admitted to me," went on Paul at length, "that he was
believed to have wronged two people, and that both of them had reason
to bear him enmity. Might there not have been others of whom you never
heard?"

"Of course my son was thirty years of age, and he lived his own life.
At the same time it is universally admitted that he was respected in
the town and beloved by practically everyone."

"With the exception of these people, who, as you have admitted, uttered
dark threats against him?"

At this the witness was silent.

"We will now go on to the question of the knife," said Paul,
"concerning which you have made so much." And he dealt with this
question in a similar way to that with which he had dealt with it on
the previous occasion. The tendency of his questions was to show how
unlikely it was that he, whom the witness still called a clever,
scheming, cold-blooded villain, should use a knife known to be his, a
knife that had been seen on his office desk, and leave it in the
murdered man's body, knowing that all the time it could be traced to
himself.

"There is still something more important," said Paul. "From the
evidence given it is known that I parted from your son at twilight on
the night before the murder."

"Yes."

"On that occasion he struck me down when I was walking away from him.
The blow almost deprived me of my senses, and I lay stunned for some
seconds."

"Yes."

"When I rose I made no attack on him."

"No."

"But I uttered a threat that I would be even with him."

"Yes. I regard your words as practically a threat of murder."

"Do you know what your son was doing between that time and the time
when he was supposed to meet with the person who murdered him?"

"No; I cannot tell."

"You say he came into the house where two letters awaited him; those
two