“You still think there was a cobra?”

“I am sure of it.”

“And you ran out of the arbour so fast you bumped your head?”

“I suppose that’s what happened.  It’s mighty sore, anyway,” and Swain put his hand to it ruefully.

“Mr. Swain,” went on the coroner, slowly, “are you prepared to swear that, after you hurt your head, you might not, in a confused and half-dazed condition, have followed your previous impulse to go to the house and see Mr. Vaughan?”

“Yes,” answered Swain, emphatically, “I am.  Although I was somewhat dazed, I have a distinct recollection of going straight to the wall and climbing back over it.”

“You cut your wrist as you were crossing the wall the first time?”

[Illustration:  “I’m lawyer enough to know,” he said, “that a question like that is not permissible”]

“Yes,” and Swain held up his hand and showed the strip of plaster across the wound.

“Your right wrist?”

“Yes.”

“It bled freely, did it not?”

“Very freely.”

“What became of the clothes you took off when you changed into those brought by Mr. Godfrey?”

“I don’t know.  Mr. Lester told me they were left here.  I intended to inquire for them.”

At a sign from Goldberger, Simmonds opened a suit-case and placed a bundle on the table.  Goldberger unrolled it and handed it to Swain.

“Are these the clothes?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Swain, after a moment’s examination.

“Will you hold the shirt up so the jury can see it?”

Swain held the garment up, and everybody’s eyes were fixed upon the blood-soaked sleeve.

“There seems to have been a good deal of blood,” remarked Goldberger.  “It must have run down over your hand.”

“It did.  It was all over my fingers.”

“So that it would probably stain anything you touched?”

“Yes, very probably.”

“Did you think of that when you were in the arbour with Miss Vaughan?”

Swain’s face suddenly crimsoned and he hung his head.

“I’m afraid not,” he said.

“How was she dressed?”

“In a white robe of some silk-like material.”

“A robe that would show a blood-stain?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Goldberger paused for an instant, and then produced a pad, such as one uses for inking rubber stamps, opened it and placed it on the table before him.

“Have you any objection to giving me a set of your finger-prints?” he asked.

“None whatever,” and Swain stepped toward the table and placed the tips of his fingers on the pad.  Then he pressed each one carefully upon the pad of paper which the coroner placed before him.  Goldberger watched him curiously, until all ten impressions had been made.

“You did that as though you had done it before,” he remarked.

“I made a set once for Mr. Vaughan,” said Swain, sitting down again.  “He had a most interesting collection.”