s. Heredith give you her necklace?"

"She asked me to raise some money on it for her."

"For what purpose?"

"I cannot say. Pretty women always need money. It may have been for
dress, or bridge, or old debts. She brought me the necklace one day, and
asked me to get some money on it. I suggested that she should apply to
her husband, but she said she needed some extra money, and she did not
wish him to know."

"And you complied with her request?"

"I did, after she had pressed me several times. I am always a fool where
women are concerned. I promised to raise money on the necklace in London
for her. That was the beginning of my troubles. But who could have
foreseen? How was I to know what was going to happen?"

He sat brooding for a space with gloomy eyes, like a man repelled by the
menace of events, then burst out wildly:

"I'm in a horrible position. Who will believe me? My God, what a fool
I've been!"

"You are doing yourself no good by going on like this," Colwyn said.
"You are keeping something back. My advice to you is to be quite frank
with me and tell me everything."

"You must give me a few minutes first to think it over," responded
Nepcote. He cast a doubtful glance at the detective, and relapsed into
another brooding silence.

"Before you say anything more it is my duty to inform you of my own
connection with the case," said Colwyn. "There has been an arrest for
the murder, as no doubt you are aware, but the family are not satisfied
that the right person has been arrested. You are suspected."

"Do they think that I murdered Violet? Oh, I never dreamt of this," he
added, as Colwyn remained silent. "I thought that you and the police
were searching for me because of the necklace. It is even worse than I
thought. I will now tell you all. Perhaps you will then help me, for I
am innocent."

Until that moment he had flung out his protestations with an excited
impetuosity which told of a mind suffering under a grievous burden,
though it was impossible to determine whether that state of feeling
arose from anxiety or conscious guilt. His quietness now was in the
oddest contrast. It was as though he had been sobered by his realization
of the difficulty of convincing an outsider of his innocence of a foul
crime in which he was deeply entangled by an appalling web of
circumstance.

He began by explaining, vaguely enough, his past friendship with the
murdered girl. He had first met her in London two years be