“The most telling point against you was the fact that not only the butler, footman, and two housemaids, but you yourself, at the coroner’s inquest, swore that the small Japanese knife was in its sheath during the afternoon; indeed, the footman said it was there, to the best of his belief, at midnight.  Then, again, a small drawer in Sir Alan’s writing-table had been wrenched open whilst you were alone in the room.  On this point the footman was positive.  Near the drawer rested the sword from which its viperish companion had been abstracted.  Had not the butler found Sir Alan’s body, still palpitating, and testified beyond any manner of doubt that you were apparently sleeping in the library, you would have been hanged, Mr. Hume.”

“Probably.”

“The air of probability attending your execution would have been most convincing.”

“Is my case, then, so desperate?”

“You cannot be tried again, you know.”

“I do not mean that.  I want to establish my innocence; to compel society to reinstate me as a man profoundly wronged; above all, to marry the woman I love.”

Brett amused himself by rapidly projecting several rings of smoke through a large one.

“So you really are innocent?” he said, after a pause.

David Hume rose from his chair, and reached for his hat, gloves, and stick.

“You have crushed my remaining hope of emancipation,” he exclaimed bitterly.  “You have the repute of being able to pluck the heart out of a mystery, Mr. Brett, so when you assume that I am guilty—­”

“I have assumed nothing of the kind.  You seem to possess the faculty of self-control.  Kindly exercise it, and answer my questions, Did you kill your cousin?”

“No.”

“Who did kill him?”

“I do not know.”

“Do you suspect anybody ?”

“Not in the remotest degree.”

“Did he kill himself?”

“That theory was discussed privately, but not brought forward at the trial.  Three doctors said it was not worthy of a moment’s consideration.”

“Well, you need not shout your replies, and I would prefer to see you comfortably seated, unless, of course, you feel more at ease near the door.”

A trifle shamefacedly, Hume returned to his former position near the fireplace—­that shrine to which all the household gods do reverence, even in the height of summer.  It is impossible to conceive the occupants of a room deliberately grouping themselves without reference to the grate.

Brett placed the open scrap-book on his knees, and ran an index finger along underlined passages in the manner of counsel consulting a brief.

“Why did you give your cousin this sword?”

“Because he told me he was making a collection of Japanese arms, and I remarked that my grandfather on my mother’s side, Admiral Cunningham, had brought this weapon, with others, from the Far East.  It lay for fifty years in our gun-room at Glen Tochan.”