The woman was listening intently.  Hilditch’s expression was one of cynical wonder.  Francis rose to his feet and moved across to his hostess.

“Mrs. Hilditch,” he said, “will you allow me to make my apologies?  Your husband and I have arrived at an understanding —­or perhaps I should say a misunderstanding—­which renders the acceptance of any further hospitality on my part impossible.”

She held out the tips of her fingers.

“I had no idea,” she observed, with gentle sarcasm, “that you barristers were such purists morally.  I thought you were rather proud of being the last hope of the criminal classes.”

“Madam,” Francis replied, “I am not proud of having saved the life of a self-confessed murderer, even though that man may be your husband.”

Hilditch was laughing softly to himself as he escorted his departing guest to the door.

“You have a quaint sense of humour,” Francis remarked.

“Forgive me,” Oliver Hilditch begged, “but your last few words rather appealed to me.  You must be a person of very scanty perceptions if you could spend the evening here and not understand that my death is the one thing in the world which would make my wife happy.”

Francis walked home with these last words ringing in his ears.  They seemed with him even in that brief period of troubled sleep which came to him when he had regained his rooms and turned in.  They were there in the middle of the night when he was awakened, shivering, by the shrill summons of his telephone bell.  He stood quaking before the instrument in his pajamas.  It was the voice which, by reason of some ghastly premonition, he had dreaded to hear—­level, composed, emotionless.

“Mr. Ledsam?” she enquired.

“I am Francis Ledsam,” he assented.  “Who wants me?”

“It is Margaret Hilditch speaking,” she announced.  “I felt that I must ring up and tell you of a very strange thing which happened after you left this evening.”

“Go on,” he begged hoarsely.

“After you left,” she went on, “my husband persisted in playing with that curious dagger.  He laid it against his heart, and seated himself in the chair which Mr. Jordan had occupied, in the same attitude.  It was what he called a reconstruction.  While he was holding it there, I think that he must have had a fit, or it may have been remorse, we shall never know.  He called out and I hurried across the room to him.  I tried to snatch the dagger away—­I did so, in fact—­but I must have been too late.  He had already applied that slight movement of the fingers which was necessary.  The doctor has just left.  He says that death must have been instantaneous.”

“But this is horrible!” Francis cried out into the well of darkness.

“A person is on the way from Scotland Yard,” the voice continued, without change or tremor.  “When he has satisfied himself, I am going to bed.  He is here now.  Good-night!”