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At length he said: “Why did you want to tell me this?”

The question startled Granice. He was about to explain, as he had explained to Ascham; but suddenly it occurred to him that if his motive had not seemed convincing to the lawyer it would carry much less weight with Denver. Both were successful men, and success does not understand the subtle agony of failure. Granice cast about for another reason.

“Why, I–the thing haunts me . . . remorse, I suppose you’d call it. . .”

Denver struck the ashes from his empty pipe.

“Remorse? Bosh!” he said energetically.

Granice’s heart sank. “You don’t believe in–REMORSE?”

“Not an atom: in the man of action. The mere fact of your talking of remorse proves to me that you’re not the man to have planned and put through such a job.”

Granice groaned. “Well–I lied to you about remorse. I’ve never felt any.”

Denver’s lips tightened sceptically about his freshly-filled pipe. “What was your motive, then? You must have had one.”

“I’ll tell you–” And Granice began again to rehearse the story of his failure, of his loathing for life. “Don’t say you don’t believe me this time . . . that this isn’t a real reason!” he stammered out piteously as he ended.

Denver meditated. “No, I won’t say that. I’ve seen too many queer things. There’s always a reason for wanting to get out of life–the wonder is that we find so many for staying in!” Granice’s heart grew light. “Then you DO believe me?” he faltered.

“Believe that you’re sick of the job? Yes. And that you haven’t the nerve to pull the trigger? Oh, yes–that’s easy enough, too. But all that doesn’t make you a murderer–though I don’t say it proves you could never have been one.”

“I HAVE been one, Denver–I swear to you.”

“Perhaps.” He meditated. “Just tell me one or two things.”

“Oh, go ahead. You won’t stump me!” Granice heard himself say with a laugh.

“Well–how did you make all those trial trips without exciting your sister’s curiosity? I knew your night habits pretty well at that time, remember. You were very seldom out late. Didn’t the change in your ways surprise her?”

“No; because she was away at the time. She went to pay several visits in the country soon after we came back from Wrenfield, and was only in town for a night or two before–before I did the job.”

“And that night she went to bed early with a headache?”

“Yes–blinding. She didn’t know anything when she had that kind. And her room was at the back of the flat.”

Denver again meditated. “And when you got back–she didn’t hear you? You got in without her knowing it?”

“Yes. I went straight to my work–took it up at the word where I’d left off–WHY, DENVER, DON’T YOU REMEMBER?” Granice suddenly, passionately interjected.

“Remember–?”

“Yes; how you found me–when you looked in that morning, between two and three . . . your usual hour . . .?”

“Yes,” the editor nodded.

Granice gave a short laugh. “In my old coat–with my pipe: looked as if I’d been working all night, didn’t I? Well, I hadn’t been in my chair ten minutes!”

Denver uncrossed his legs and then crossed them again. “I didn’t know whether YOU remembered that.”

“What?”

“My coming in that particular night–or morning.”

Granice swung round in his chair. “Why, man alive! That’s why I’m here now. Because it was you who spoke for me at the inquest, when they looked round to see what all the old man’s heirs had been doing that night–you who testified to having dropped in and found me at my desk as usual. . . . I thought THAT would appeal to your journalistic sense if nothing else would!”

Denver smiled. “Oh, my journalistic sense is still susceptible enough–and the idea’s picturesque, I grant you: asking the man who proved your alibi to establish your guilt.”