ere all
he would have to be to first perform such a brutal deed and then carry
out his hypocrisy to the point of using his skill as a criminal lawyer
to defend another man falsely accused of the crime."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the detective, "but I forget nothing. I
only bring to the consideration of this subject a totally unprejudiced
mind and an experience which has taught me never to omit testing the
truth of a charge because it seems at first blush false, preposterous,
and without visible foundation. If you will recall the conversation to
which I have just alluded as having been held on the court-house steps
on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, you will remember that it was
the intellectual crime that was discussed--the crime of an intelligent
man, safe in the knowledge that his motive for doing such a deed was a
secret to the world."

"My God!" exclaimed Mr. Ferris, under his breath, "the man seems to be
in earnest!"

"Gentlemen," pursued Mr. Gryce, with more dignity than he had hitherto
seen fit to assume, "it is not my usual practice to express myself as
openly as I have done here to-day. In all ordinary cases I consider it
expedient to reserve intact my suspicions and my doubts till I have
completed my discoveries and arranged my arguments so as to bear out
with some show of reason whatever statement I may feel obliged to make.
But the extraordinary features of this affair, and the fact that so
many were present at the scene we have just left, have caused me to
change my usual tactics. Though far from ready to say that Mr. Orcutt's
words were those of confession, I still see much reason to doubt his
innocence, and, feeling thus, am quite willing you should know it in
time to prepare for the worst."

"Then you propose making what has occurred here public?" asked Mr.
Ferris, with emotion.

"Not so," was the detective's ready reply. "On the contrary, I was about
to suggest that you did something more than lay a command of silence
upon those who were present."

The District Attorney, who, as he afterward said, felt as if he were
laboring under some oppressive nightmare, turned to the coroner and
said:

"Dr. Tredwell, what do you advise me to do? Terrible as this shock has
been, and serious as is the duty it possibly involves, I have never
allowed myself to shrink from doing what was right simply because it
afforded suffering to myself or indignity to my friends. Do you think I
am called upon