“You are right,” said Philip Crawford.  “I do owe an explanation, and I shall give it here and now.”

Although what he was going to say was doubtless a confession, Mr. Crawford’s face showed an unmistakable expression of relief.  He seemed like a man who had borne a terrible secret around with him for the past week, and was now glad that he was about to impart it to some one else.

He spoke very gravely, but with no faltering or hesitation.

“This is a solemn confession,” he said, turning to his lawyer, “and is made to the district attorney, with yourself and Mr. Burroughs as witnesses.”

Mr. Randolph bowed his head, in acknowledgment of this formal statement.

“I am a criminal in the eyes of the law,” said Mr. Crawford, in an impersonal tone, which I knew he adopted to hide any emotion he might feel.  “I have committed a dastardly crime.  But I am not the murderer of my brother Joseph.”

We all felt our hearts lightened of a great load, for it was impossible to disbelieve that calm statement and the clear gaze of those truthful, unafraid eyes.

“The story I have to tell will sound as if I might have been my brother’s slayer, and this is why I assert the contrary at the outset.”

Pausing here, Mr. Crawford unlocked the drawer of a desk and took out a small pistol, which he laid on the table.

“That,” he said, “is my revolver, and it is the weapon with which my brother was killed.”

I felt a choking sensation.  Philip Crawford’s manner was so far removed from a sensational—­or melodramatic effect, that it was doubly impressive.  I believed his statement that he did not kill his brother, but what could these further revelations mean?  Hall?  Florence?  Young Philip?  Whom would Philip Crawford thus shield for a whole week, and then, when forced to do so, expose?

“You are making strange declarations, Mr. Crawford,” said Lawyer Randolph, who was already white-faced and trembling.

“I know it,” went on Philip Crawford, “and I trust you three men will hear my story through, and then take such measures as you see fit.

“This pistol, as I said, is my property.  Perhaps about a month ago, I took it over to my brother Joseph.  He has always been careless of danger, and as he was in the habit of sitting in his office until very late, with the long windows open on a dark veranda, I often told him he ought to keep a weapon in his desk, by way of general protection.  Then, after there had been a number of burglaries in West Sedgwick, I took this pistol to him, and begged him as a favor to me to let it stay in his desk drawer as a precautionary measure.  He laughed at my solicitude, but put it away in a drawer, the upper right-hand one, among his business papers.  So much for the pistol.