“Don’t think I am telling you this out of mere jealousy,” Aaron Grafton went on, and his manner was earnest.  “I loved her deeply and sincerely.  I do yet, but in a way that is perfectly right.  I have not told her so—­but—­” He was silent a moment.

“I went away after she threw me over,” he resumed.  “I couldn’t stand it to be near her and see her going out—­with him.  But I came back.  Though the old wound still hurt, I tried not to let her see.  We became friends again—­in fact we had never ceased to be friends.

“Perhaps I have acted foolishly, but, of late, I have seen her quite often.  I began to feel that her married life was not happy.  I took pains to enquire, and learned that it was not.  I tried to make her a little happier by talking to her.  Once or twice she met me and we walked together in the woods.”

The colonel looked sharply at his caller.

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t put any wrong construction on it!  I’d give my very life to make her happy, and do you think I’d—­”

“I don’t doubt you for a moment, sir!”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Grafton.  “It is good to know that there is still some truth and honor in the world and that a man and woman can be friends though the circumstances seem peculiar.”

He paused a moment to overcome his emotion and resumed: 

“Well, Cynthia and I are friends—­good friends.  It was to talk over what course was best for her to pursue under certain circumstances that she and I walked out together.  We went in secret, for there are gossiping and wagging tongues in Colchester as elsewhere, and if I, the leading merchant in the town, was seen to be alone with pretty Cynthia Larch, whose husband was a friend of judges and politicians who frequent his hotel, there would be talk little short of scandal.”

“I quite agree with you.  So you walked in secret?”

“Yes.  And it was while we were out together that the cross she was wearing became unfastened and fell.  I most clumsily, stepped on it, greatly marring the setting.

“She was distressed, of course, but I said I would take it to a jeweler’s and have it repaired without any one being the wiser.  She agreed that was best.  So I took it—­”

“To Mrs. Darcy’s place, and she was found murdered!” broke in the old detective quickly.

Aaron Grafton started from his chair.

“How in the name of Heaven did you know that?” he cried.  “I thought that not a soul but I knew it.  I did not even tell Cynthia!”

“The explanation is simple,” said the colonel.  “I will be almost as frank with you as you have been with me.  I know more about you than you think.  Wait a moment.”

The colonel stepped into a closet.  He made a few rapid changes in his clothing and took off a tiny bit of eyebrow, which had been added to his own a short time before.  Then he confronted the merchant.