My composure is shown by the fact that I dropped the candle down the next sewer opening, but the fact remains that I carried the fire-tongs home.  I do not recall doing so.  In fact, I knew nothing of the matter until morning.  On the way to my house I was elaborating a story to the effect that my overcoat had been stolen from a restaurant where I and my client had dined.  The hat offered more serious difficulties.  I fancied that, by kissing my wife good-by at the breakfast table, I might be able to get out without her following me to the front door, which is her custom.

But, as a matter of fact, I need not have concerned myself about the hat.  When I descended to breakfast the next morning I found her surveying the umbrella-stand in the hall.  The fire-tongs were standing there, gleaming, among my sticks and umbrellas.

I lied.  I lied shamelessly.  She is a nervous woman, and, as we have no children, her attitude toward me is one of watchful waiting.  Through long years she has expected me to commit some indiscretion —­innocent, of course, such as going out without my overcoat on a cool day—­and she intends to be on hand for every emergency.  I dared not confess, therefore, that on the previous evening I had burglariously entered a closed house, had there surprised another intruder at work, had fallen and bumped my head severely, and had, finally, had my overcoat taken.

“Horace,” she said coldly, “where did you get those fire-tongs?”

“Fire-tongs?” I repeated.  “Why, that’s so.  They are fire-tongs.”

“Where did you get them?”

“My dear,” I expostulated, “I get them?”

“What I would like to ask,” she said, with an icy calmness that I have learned to dread, “is whether you carried them home over your head, under the impression that you had your umbrella.”

“Certainly not,” I said with dignity.  “I assure you, my dear—­”

“I am not a curious woman,” she put in incisively, “but when my husband spends an evening out, and returns minus his overcoat, with his hat mashed, a lump the size of an egg over his ear, and puts a pair of fire-tongs in the umbrella stand under the impression that it is an umbrella, I have a right to ask at least if he intends to continue his life of debauchery.”

I made a mistake then.  I should have told her.  Instead, I took my broken hat and jammed it on my head with a force that made the lump she had noticed jump like a toothache, and went out.

When, at noon and luncheon, I tried to tell her the truth, she listened to the end:  Then:  “I should think you could have done better than that,” she said.  “You have had all morning to think it out.”

However, if things were in a state of armed neutrality at home, I had a certain compensation for them when I told my story to Sperry that afternoon.

“You see how it is,” I finished.  “You can stay out of this, or come in, Sperry, but I cannot stop now.  He was murdered beyond a doubt, and there is an intelligent effort being made to eliminate every particle of evidence.”