porch floor of Number
Five--"

"No! No! I wasn't on the porch. I----" He checked the words, realizing
that he had betrayed himself.

"Not on the porch?" Bristow caught him up. "Where, then? Where?" He
limped a step nearer to the prisoner. "Out with it now! You _were_
there! You were there!"

He stood over Morley, conquering him by the sheer weight of his
personality.

"I wasn't on the porch."

"All right--not on the porch. But where?"

Morley looked up at him and, mechanically, pushed his chair back, as if
he felt the need of more space. Bristow, in his shirt-sleeves, his right
arm held up, continued to crowd against him, threatening him, commanding
him to speak.

Braceway was amazed by the intensity of Bristow's glance, the tautness
of his body, the harsh authority in his voice. This man who had been ill
a few hours before exhibited now a strength and a vitality that would
have been remarkable in anybody. In him, under the circumstances, it was
nothing short of marvellous.

Morley could not withstand him.

"I don't know anything--anything worth while," he said weakly, trembling
from head to foot. "I would have told it at the very--at the very first;
only I thought it might keep me in Furmville too long. I wanted to get
back here and----"

"Never mind about what you wanted!" Bristow's hand fell and gripped his
shoulder painfully, shook him, brought him back to the main issue. "What
did you see? That's what we want to know, every bit of it, all of it!"

Morley flinched, trying to throw off Bristow's hand. The lame man stepped
back.

"All right," he said, "I'm not going to hurt you."

Morley, having yielded, told his story hurriedly, with little pauses here
and there, struggling for breath.

"I did miss my train, the midnight," he began. "I really tried to catch
it. But, when I found it was gone, I couldn't sleep. I was worried and
frightened. This bank business was on my mind. I wanted to think." He
forced a mirthless smile at that. "I couldn't think very straight, but
I tried to. I couldn't do anything but see myself in jail, in the
penitentiary, because of the bank.

"I wandered around without paying any attention to where I was. I'd left
my bags in the station. The first thing I knew, I was on Manniston Road,
in front of Number Nine--your house. I felt tired, and I sat down on the
bottom step. I had on a raincoat. It--it was pitch-dark there.

"The two electric lights, the street lights, on that