“You ask me that, Mr. Fenton.  Do you wish to know what I think of the connection between these two great tragedies?”

“Yes; you have earned a voice in this matter; speak, Sweetwater.”

“Well, then, I think Miss Page has made an effort to throw the blame of her own misdoing on one or both of these unfortunate old men.  She is sufficiently cold-blooded and calculating to do so; and circumstances certainly favoured her.  Shall I show how?”

Mr. Fenton consulted Knapp, who nodded his head.  The Boston detective was not without curiosity as to how Sweetwater would prove the case.

“Old James Zabel had seen his brother sinking rapidly from inanition; this their condition amply shows.  He was weak himself, but John was weaker, and in a moment of desperation he rushed out to ask a crumb of bread from Agatha Webb, or possibly—­for I have heard some whispers of an old custom of theirs to join Philemon at his yearly merry-making and so obtain in a natural way the bite for himself and brother he perhaps had not the courage to ask for outright.  But death had been in the Webb cottage before him, which awful circumstance, acting on his already weakened nerves, drove him half insane from the house and sent him wandering blindly about the streets for a good half-hour before he reappeared in his own house.  How do I know this?  From a very simple fact.  Abel here has been to inquire, among other things, if Mr. Crane remembers the tune we were playing at the great house when he came down the main street from visiting old widow Walker.  Fortunately he does, for the trip, trip, trip in it struck his fancy, and he has found himself humming it over more than once since.  Well, that waltz was played by us at a quarter after midnight, which fixes the time of the encounter at Mrs. Webb’s gateway pretty accurately.  But, as you will soon see, it was ten minutes to one before James Zabel knocked at Loton’s door.  How do I know this?  By the same method of reasoning by which I determined the time of Mr. Crane’s encounter.  Mrs. Loton was greatly pleased with the music played that night, and had all her windows open in order to hear it, and she says we were playing ‘Money Musk’ when that knocking came to disturb her.  Now, gentlemen, we played ‘Money Musk’ just before we were called out to supper, and as we went to supper promptly at one, you can see just how my calculation was made.  Thirty-five minutes, then, passed between the moment James Zabel was seen rushing from Mrs. Webb’s gateway and that in which he appeared at Loton’s bakery, demanding a loaf of bread, and offering in exchange one of the bills which had been stolen from the murdered woman’s drawer.  Thirty-five minutes!  And he and his brother were starving.  Does it look, then, as if that money was in his possession when he left Mrs. Webb’s house?  Would any man who felt the pangs of hunger as he did, or who saw a brother perishing for food before his eyes,