room.  You drank quite a little there.  You and Perley were alone, throwing dice.  You got into a quarrel.  Perley tried to draw his revolver.  You were quicker.  You drew the one he had given you—­and fired.  He fell to the floor—­you saw the blood gush from his breast just above the heart—­he was dead.  In a panic you rushed from the place and out into the street.  I don’t think you went home that night.”

Burton raised his head, showing his haggard face.

“I guess it’s no use,” he said dully.  “If you know, others must.  I thought only Isaac and Sagosto knew.  Why haven’t I been arrested?  I wish to God I had—­I wouldn’t have had to-day to answer for.”

“I am not through yet,” said Jimmie Dale gravely.  “The next day old Isaac here sent for you.  He said Sagosto had told him of the murder, and had offered to dispose of the corpse and keep his mouth shut for fifty thousand dollars—­that no one in his place knew of it except himself.  Isaac, for his share, wanted considerably more.  You told him you had no such sums, that you had no money.  He told you how you could get it—­you had access to Maddon’s safe, you were Maddon’s confidential secretary, fully in your employer’s trust, the last man on earth to be suspected—­and there were Maddon’s famous, priceless rubies.”

Jimmie Dale paused.  Burton made no answer.

“And so,” said Jimmie Dale presently, “to save yourself from the death penalty you took them.”

“Yes,” said Burton, scarcely above his breath.  “Are you an officer?  If you are, take me, have done with it!  Only for Heaven’s sake end it!  If you’re not—­”

Jimmie Dale was not listening.  “The cupboard at the rear of the room,” she had said.  He walked across to it now, opened it, and, after a little search, found a small bundle.  He returned with it in his hand, and, kneeling beside the dead man on the floor, his back to Burton, untied it, took out a red wig and beard, and slipped them on to old Isaac’s head and face.

“I wonder,” he said grimly, as he stood up, “if you ever saw this man before?”

“My God—­Perley!” With a wild cry, Burton was on his feet, straining forward like a man crazed.

“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale, “Perley!  Sort of an ironic justice in his end as far as you are concerned, isn’t there?  I think we’ll leave him like that—­as Perley.  It will provide the police with an interesting little problem—­which they will never solve, and—­steady!”

Burton was rocking on his feet, the tears were streaming down his face.  He lurched heavily—­and Jimmie Dale caught him, and pushed him back into the chair again.

“I thought—­I thought there was blood on my hands,” said Burton brokenly; “that—­that I had taken a man’s life.  It was horrible, horrible!  I’ve lived through three days that I thought would drive me mad, while I—­I tried to do my work, and—­and talk to people, just as if nothing had happened.  And every one that spoke to me seemed so carefree and happy, and I would have sold my soul to have changed places with them.”  He stared at the form on the floor, and shivered suddenly.  “It—­it was like that I saw him last!” he whispered.  “But—­but I do not understand.”