"And may I ask," said he, "what has happened to make you believe she was not struck at the moment hitherto supposed?"
"Ah, now," replied the detective, "we come down to facts." And leaning with a confidential air toward the prisoner, he quietly said: "Your counsel has died, for one thing."
Astonished as much by the tone as the tenor of these words, Mr. Mansell drew back from his visitor in some distrust. Seeing it, Mr. Gryce edged still farther forward, and calmly continued:
"If no one has told you the particulars of Mr. Orcutt's death, you probably do not know why Miss Dare was at his house last evening?"
The look of the prisoner was sufficient reply.
"She went there," resumed Mr. Gryce, with composure, "to tell him that her whole evidence against you had been given under the belief that you were guilty of the crime with which you had been charged; that by a trick of my fellow-detectives, Hickory and Byrd, she had been deceived into thinking you had actually admitted your guilt to her; and that she had only been undeceived after she had uttered the perjury with which she sought to save you yesterday morning."
"Perjury?" escaped involuntarily from Craik Mansell's lips.
"Yes," repeated the detective, "perjury. Miss Dare lied when she said she had been to Mrs. Clemmens' cottage on the morning of the murder. She was not there, nor did she lift her hand against the widow's life. That tale she told to escape telling another which she thought would insure your doom."
"You have been talking to Miss Dare?" suggested the prisoner, with subdued sarcasm.
"I have been talking to my two men," was the unmoved retort, "to Hickory and to Byrd, and they not only confirm this statement of hers in regard to the deception they played upon her, but say enough to show she could not have been guilty of the crime, because at that time she honestly believed you to be so."