Page:The wrong box (IA wrongbox00stevrich).pdf/128

 say it—imminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can lay my hand upon my heart without a blush. Except on the really trifling point of the smuggling of the Hercules (and even of that I now humbly repent), my life has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the light,' cried the little man; 'and now—now!'

'Cheer up, old boy,' said Michael. 'I assure you we should count this little contretemps a trifle at the office; it's the sort of thing that may occur to anyone; and if you're perfectly sure you had no hand in it'

'What language am I to find—' began Pitman.

'Oh, I'll do that part of it,' interrupted Michael, 'you have no experience. But the point is this: If—or rather since—you know nothing of the crime, since the—the party in the closet—is neither your father, nor your brother, nor your creditor, nor your mother-in-law, nor what they call an injured husband'

'Oh, my dear sir!' interjected Pitman, horrified.

'Since, in short,' continued the lawyer, 'you had no possible interest in the crime, we have a perfectly free field before us and a safe game to play. Indeed the problem is really entertaining; it is one I have long contemplated in the light of an A. B. case;