Of course nobody who knew me believed such a fearful thing, but seeing how it stood and how the details looked to the public, I didn’t blame any for doubting except Joshua Owlet; and even in my nasty fix I couldn’t but admire the devilish craft of that man.  Of course I knew from the first he’d done the trick; and more I knew, because I’d seen his far-reaching reasons and his cunning, to use Bond against me and so plot that we should wipe out each other and leave Jenny free.  I could see it all; and when Sir Walter had one of the big swells from Scotland Yard to investigate the murder from the beginning, and when that man heard all I’d got to say, he saw it too.

A mean little build of chap, but properly bursting with intellect, was Detective-Inspector Bates; and after hearing Sir Walter and after hearing me, he never felt no doubt himself about my innocence.

“’Tis like this,” I said.  “You can see what Owlet did.  He told me Bond meant to take my life; and no doubt he told Bond I meant to take his life; and the difference was this; Bond did mean to shoot me that afternoon, doubtless believing that if he didn’t, I’d be the death of him later.  He could get me when he liked.  But I never meant to do more than prove he was a rascal, or satisfy myself that he was not.  For the rest, and as to details, only Owlet can tell ’em; but it’s very clear to me he did what they say I did.  He knew where Bond was going to lie for me, and he was there hid afore Bond came and slew him and left him so as it should be shown, as it has been shown, that I slew him.  Very like he watched the whole thing and was hid at my elbow somewhere when I found Bond; and then, after I’d gone, he got Bond’s revolver and took it away so as I should be catched in a lie and prove the only one that was armed.  And more than that:  he may have lent Bond the revolver himself.”

I think the Detective-Inspector felt very pleased with my view; and there was another good point for me, because, afore they buried him, they took the dead man’s fingerprints and found he’d been in prison before.  In fact he was a bad ’un—­a juvenile adult that had served two years for three burglaries; and so Owlet had told me a bit of truth mixed up with his lies.  But of course poor Bond might have meant to run straight after he fell in love with Jenny, till Owlet tackled him and encouraged him to try and murder me.  Nobody will ever know what his game at Oakshotts was, for he died before he’d played it.  Anyway, he was gone, and all that mattered to me remained to get my neck out of the noose if it could be done.

And it was done, though more by the act of God than any particular cleverness of man.  But, primed with what I’d told him, Mr. Bates got up Owlet’s sleeve and, little by little, wormed out the truth.  And Owlet, who’d been on the razor edge over the job for a good bit with a mind tottering, lost his nerve at last and gave himself away.  He’d got in some queer fashion to believe Bates was his friend and on his side, for these deep detective chaps have a way often to show friendship to them they most suspect; and so it happened; for Joshua let it out at last, finding the other knew very near as much about it as he did.  And then the darbies were on him, and soon after they were off me.