“What do you mean?” Henshaw had for a moment seemed to be calculating the probability of this monstrous suggestion being a fact, and had dismissed it with the contempt which showed itself in his question.

“I mean,” Gifford replied with quiet assurance, “that I happened to be a witness of the interview in the tower-room between your brother and Miss Morriston, that I was there when he received his death-wound, and that it was I whom the girl Haynes saw descending by a rope from the top window.”

Henshaw had started to his feet, his face working with an almost passionate astonishment.  “You—­you tell me all that,” he cried, “and expect me to believe it?”

“I have told you and shall tell you nothing,” was the cool reply, “that I am not prepared to state on oath in the witness-box.”

For a while Henshaw seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration.  “It seems to me,” he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely master, “that, whether your statement is true or otherwise, you are placing yourself in an uncommonly dangerous position, Mr. Gifford.”

“I am aware that I am inviting a certain amount of ugly suspicion,” Gifford agreed, “but the truth, which might have remained a mystery, has been forced from me by the necessity of protecting Miss Morriston.  Perhaps you had better hear a frank account of the whole story, and the explanation of what I admit you are so far justified in setting down as concocted and wildly improbable.”

“I should very much like to hear it,” Henshaw returned in a tone which held out no promise of credence.

Thereupon Gifford gave him a terse account of the events and the chance which had led him into the tower and to be a secret witness of what happened there.  Remembering that he was addressing the dead man’s brother, he recounted the details of the interview without feeling; indeed he threw no more colour into it than if he had been opening a case in court.  He simply stated the facts without comment.  Henshaw listened to the singular story in an attitude of doggedly unemotional attention.  Lawyer-like he restrained all tendency to interrupt the narrative and asked no question as it proceeded.  Nevertheless it was clear he was thinking keenly, eager to note any weak points which he could turn to use.

When the recital had come to an end he said coolly—­

“Your story is a very extraordinary one, Mr. Gifford; I won’t call it, as it seems at first sight, wildly improbable, but it is at any rate an almost incredible coincidence.  With your knowledge of the law I need scarcely remind you that the facts as you have just recounted them place you in a rather unenviable position.”

“As I have already said,” Gifford replied, “my story is calculated to suggest suspicion against me.  But I am prepared to risk that consequence.”

“In court,” Henshaw observed, with a malicious smile, “handled by a counsel who knew his business, your statement could be given a very ugly turn indeed.”