l this has gone on
long enough, and I don't propose to have it go on any longer. I had
nothing to do with the murder of Wallingford, but I know who had, and
I'm not going to keep the knowledge to myself, now that things have come
to this pass. You'd better listen to a plain and straightforward tale,
instead of to bits of a story here and bits of a story there."

The chairman turned to those of his brother magistrates who were sitting
nearest to him and, after a whispered consultation with them and with
the clerk, nodded not over graciously at the defiant figure in the dock.

"We will hear your statement," he said. "You had better go into the
witness-box and make it on oath."

Krevin moved across to the witness-box with alacrity and went through
the usual formalities as only a practised hand could. He smiled
cynically as he folded his fingers together on the ledge of the box and
faced the excited listeners.

"As there's no one to ask me any questions--at this stage, anyway--I'd
better tell my story in my own fashion," he said. "And to save time and
needless explanations, let me begin by saying that, as far as it went,
all the evidence your Worships have heard, from the police, from Louisa
Speck, from Dr. Pellery, from Spizey and his wife, from everybody, I
think, is substantially correct--entirely correct, I might say, for I
don't remember anything that I could contradict. The whole thing
is--what does it lead up to? In the opinion of the police to identifying
me with the actual murder of John Wallingford, and my brother there with
being accessory to the crime. The police, as usual, are absolutely and
entirely at fault--I did not kill Wallingford, and accordingly my
brother could not be an accessory to what I did not do and never had the
remotest intention of doing. Now you shall hear how circumstantial
evidence, brought to a certain point, is of no value whatever if it
can't be carried past that point. Hawthwaite has got his evidence to a
certain point--and now he's up against a blank wall. He doesn't know
what lies behind that blank wall. I do! And I'm the only person in this
world who does.

"Now listen to a plain, truthful, unvarnished account of the real facts.
On the evening of the day before Wallingford's murder, I was in the big
saloon at Bull's Snug between half-past six and seven o'clock. Mallett
came in, evidently in search of somebody. It turned out that I was the
person he was looking for. He came up to