“I shot Mr. Hasbrouck,” was his steady affirmation, given without any show of frenzy or desperation. “If you ask me why I did it, I cannot answer; if you ask me how, I am ready to state all that I know concerning the matter.”
“But, Dr. Zabriskie,” interposed his friend, “the why is the most important thing for us to consider just now. If you really desire to convince us that you committed the dreadful crime of killing a totally inoffensive man, you should give us some reason for an act so opposed to all your instincts and general conduct.”
But the Doctor continued unmoved:
“I had no reason for murdering Mr. Hasbrouck. A hundred questions can elicit no other reply; you had better keep to the how.”
A deep-drawn breath from the wife answered the looks of the three gentlemen to whom this suggestion was offered. “You see,” that breath seemed to protest, “that he is not in his right mind.”
I began to waver in my own opinion, and yet the intuition which has served me in cases as seemingly impenetrable as this, bade me beware of following the general judgment.
“Ask him to inform you how he got into the house,” I whispered to Inspector D——, who sat nearest me.
Immediately the Inspector put the question I had suggested:
“By what means did you enter Mr. Hasbrouck’s house at so late an hour as this murder occurred?”
The blind doctor’s head fell forward on his breast, and he hesitated for the first and only time.