Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/162

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH impossible for me to have been the man. My act is neither that of fool nor that of a knave; I prefer being a prisoner rather than to have this foul crime charged against me."

We must have waited there for ten minutes, no one speaking, the Judge gazing full at me, as if I were a prisoner before his court, the big frame of Donald completely blocking the doorway. Miss Dunn was crying softly, and I thought Jean was beside her, but I did not venture to glance toward them. Suddenly Calvert Dunn came down the hall, holding in his hand a lighted lantern.

"Lieutenant Navarre is lying dead in Jean's room," he said shortly, evidently striving to speak calmly, yet with trembling voice. "He was stabbed in the throat with a knife, and apparently given little opportunity for defence, as there are no evidences of struggle. There is a light still burning in his own room, further down the hall, and I believe Navarre was in there, seeking his revolver, when he heard some noise in the front of the house causing him to investigate. The hidden assassin must have sprung upon him in the dark."

"You found other evidence?"

"Comparatively little. There are marks of blood on the sill of the open window, not finger marks, merely splashes. The roadway is below, and a man dropping from that height would leave no impress on the packed ashes. I found this knife in the bushes, where it could easily have been thrown from the window."

The full meaning of all this burst upon my mind in [ 152 ]