"Yes, but the evidence points strongly to you. I think, with a speedy trial, you could be convicted, I vow I do, Mr. Bordine. Dare you go back and risk it?"

"I am innocent—"

"True, but you seem guilty. The girl, they say, was stabbed—"

"Yes, with a small dirk."

"Exactly," with a start.

Perhaps he was wondering how the young engineer knew so much if he was guiltless.

"Can you tell me what kind of a knife it was?"

The single eye of the questioner was fixed in a keen gaze upon the face of August Bordine.

He seemed growing suspicious again.

"It was apparently a two-edged blade."