enough," said Godfrey, turning to me;
"and I must say that it's a good one. He realises that there wasn't
provocation enough to cause a man like Swain to commit murder, with
all his senses about him; but his presumption is that the crime was
committed while Swain was in a dazed condition and not wholly
self-controlled. Such a thing is possible."

"No, it isn't!" cried Swain, his face livid. "It isn't possible! I'm
not a murderer. I remember everything else--do you think I wouldn't
remember a thing like that!"

"I don't know what to think," Godfrey admitted, a straight line
between his brows. "Besides, there's the handkerchief."

"I don't see any mystery about that," said Swain. "There's only one
way that could have come there. It dropped from my wrist when I
stooped over Miss Vaughan."

Godfrey looked at me, and I nodded. Swain might as well know the
worst.

"That would be an explanation, sure enough," said Godfrey, slowly,
"but for one fact--you didn't have any bandage on your wrist when you
came back over the wall. Both Lester and I saw your wrist and the cut
on it distinctly. Therefore, if you dropped the handkerchief there, it
must have been before that."

The blood had run from Swain's cheeks, as though drained by an open
artery, and for a moment he sat silent, staring at the speaker. Then
he raised his trembling right hand and looked at it, as though it
might bear some mark to tell him whether it were indeed guilty.

"But--but I don't understand!" he cried thickly. "You--you don't mean
to intimate--you don't believe--but I wasn't unconscious, I tell you!
I wasn't near the house until after we heard the screams! I'm sure of
it! I'd stake my soul on it!"

"Get a grip of yourself, Swain," said Godfrey, soothingly. "Don't let
yourself go like that. No, I don't believe you killed Worthington
Vaughan, consciously or unconsciously. I said Goldberger's theory was
a good one, and it is; but I don't believe it. My belief is that the
murder was done by the Thug; but there's nothing to support it, except
the fact that he was on the ground and that a noose was used. There's
not a bit of direct evidence to connect him with the crime, and
there's a lot of direct evidence to connect you with it. It's up to us
to explain it away. Now, think carefully before you answer my
questions: Have you any recollection, however faint, of having seen
Mahbub before this morning?"

Swain sat for quite a minute searching his consciou