Page:Jepson--The Loudwater mystery.djvu/172

166 "And all you went to the Castle for was to speak to Elizabeth Twitcher?" said Mr. Flexen.

"That was all I went for—every single thing. And it was all I did there—every mortal thing I did there, sir," Hutchings asseverated, and he wiped his brow.

"H'm!" said Mr. Flexen. "As you passed through the library, did you happen to notice whether the knife was in its place in the big inkstand?"

Hutchings hesitated, and his lips twitched. Then he said: "Yes, I did, sir. It was in the big inkstand."

Mr. Flexen could not make up his mind whether he was telling the truth or not. He thought that he was not. But he did not attach much importance to the matter. People who knew themselves to be suspected of a crime had often told him quite stupid and unnecessary lies and been proved innocent after all.

"I should have thought that your mind was too full of other things to notice a thing like that," he said in a somewhat incredulous tone.

Then there came an outburst. Mr. Flexen had thought that Hutchings was worked up to a high degree of nervous tension, and he was. He cried out that he knew that every one believed that he had done it; but he hadn't. He'd never thought of it. He was damned if he didn't wish he had done it. He