“Yes; that is what I thought, and that is why I called you on the telephone.  I thought you would pity me and show me some way of covering it all up.  But after I had your promise to come, I was seized with the fear that you might—­that you might betray him.  That is, I suppose, the real reason why I tried to deceive you.  In my terror I myself thought Allan guilty.  But, of course, now that I have had time to calmly think it over, I know he was not—­that he couldn’t be!  No one who knows him will believe he did it.”

“What reason had you for thinking that he might be guilty?”

“His manner during the afternoon before the murder.  He seemed so fiercely resolved, so different from his usual self.”

“I understand.  And what makes you think now that he is innocent?”

“I believe it because I understand his nature,” said Miss Vale, earnestly.  “He might be finally aroused—­under provocation he might even be violent.  But he could never do a thing like this—­it is too utterly horrible.”

“You have judged that it was probably he who was seen to go into Hume’s before the murder?”

“Yes.”

“Hume was alive when Berg closed up his shop; he was dead when you entered his showroom a half hour or so later.  Therefore he must have met his death while the cab driver Sams sat on his box across the street.  Now, while Morris was seen to go in, it is not at all positive that he was the man who came out.  We are not sure that he was not present when the crime was committed.”

Miss Vale reared her head proudly.

“Is it possible,” she said, “that you are trying to fix this deed upon Allan Morris?”

“I am trying to find the real truth,” answered Ashton-Kirk, gravely.

“The police,” said Miss Vale, “according to the newspapers, thought that the criminal gained admission by way of the roof.  This may or may not be so; but I think it is pretty evident that he made his way out in that manner.  I was on the stairs while he was in the hall.  He fled, but as he did not pass me, he must have gone upwards.  If Allan Morris had done this murder he would not have thought of this; not knowing the section, he would have been ignorant as to where the roof would lead.  But if Spatola were the man who remained, it would have been different.  Do the papers not say that he lives in a garret, or loft, in the same block?  How easy it would have been for him to pass out upon the roof of 478 after the crime and then over the housetops of the block until he came to a scuttle which perhaps led into his very attic?”

“That,” said Ashton-Kirk, “is very well conceived.  But it has one weakness.  You are not sure that the murderer did ascend to the roof after the crime.  He may have been lurking in the shadows which you say were lying so thickly at the end of the hall.  He may have been watching you as you discovered the body, while you ran down the hall once more and down the stairs.  To be sure, you slammed the door behind you; and so locked it.  But like all spring or latch locks, it could be readily opened from the inside.  No one else came out while the cab driver waited; but that was only for another fifteen minutes, according to his own statement.  The murderer could easily have waited until he had gone and then slipped out, also locking the door after him.”