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Rh threaten to do so? That would remove him from her path once and forever.

This last question seemed so unanswerable that I paused to look at it again, for it was evident that one really insuperable objection must invalidate the whole theory. By the commission of a crime, especially of a crime so serious as this one, would he not place himself as much in Miss Croydon’s power as she could possibly be in his? If she were still in his power, then, he had committed no crime; and if he had committed no crime, why, of course, he had not killed Thompson. But in that case, who had? Where had that diamond come from?

I knocked out my pipe and filled it again. I felt a good deal as though I was wandering around and around in a maze; I was getting a little dizzy.

If Tremaine had not killed Thompson, I asked myself again, who had? Not Miss Croydon! To suppose that a delicately reared girl would smash a man over the head with a piece of pipe was to descend to the ridiculous. Yet if he had attacked her, she might have nerved herself to do it. But that was absurd, too, since, admittedly, she had a pistol in her pocket and was not afraid to use it. Who else, then? Jimmy the Dude? But he had already proved an alibi; besides, a motive was wanting.

Then I thought of Cecily. Could she have been the assassin? Certainly it was not impossible; that last savage act, that shooting of an unconscious man, fitted in, somehow, with my estimate of her character. She might have done that. But why should Miss Croydon seek to shield her? Was it Cecily who