ther witnesses, who
had been acquainted with the deceased, were asked if they could explain
the mystery of his presumed abstraction of the keys, and his presence
in the burning room. But the coroner seemed to take it for granted,
naturally enough, that I, as a total stranger in the neighbourhood, and
a total stranger to Sir Percival Glyde, could not be in a position to
offer any evidence on these two points.

The course that I was myself bound to take, when my formal examination
had closed, seemed clear to me. I did not feel called on to volunteer
any statement of my own private convictions; in the first place,
because my doing so could serve no practical purpose, now that all
proof in support of any surmises of mine was burnt with the burnt
register; in the second place, because I could not have intelligibly
stated my opinion--my unsupported opinion--without disclosing the whole
story of the conspiracy, and producing beyond a doubt the same
unsatisfactory effect an the minds of the coroner and the jury, which I
had already produced on the mind of Mr. Kyrle.

In these pages, however, and after the time that has now elapsed, no
such cautions and restraints as are here described need fetter the free
expression of my opinion. I will state briefly, before my pen occupies
itself with other events, how my own convictions lead me to account for
the abstraction of the keys, for the outbreak of the fire, and for the
death of the man.

The news of my being free on bail drove Sir Percival, as I believe, to
his last resources. The attempted attack on the road was one of those
resources, and the suppression of all practical proof of his crime, by
destroying the page of the register on which the forgery had been
committed, was the other, and the surest of the two. If I could
produce no extract from the original book to compare with the certified
copy at Knowlesbury, I could produce no positive evidence, and could
threaten him with no fatal exposure. All that was necessary to the
attainment of his end was, that he should get into the vestry
unperceived, that he should tear out the page in the register, and that
he should leave the vestry again as privately as he had entered it.

On this supposition, it is easy to understand why he waited until
nightfall before he made the attempt, and why he took advantage of the
clerk's absence to possess himself of the keys. Necessity would oblige
him to strike a light to find his way to