"Because July—my wife that was—said that P. A. meant you," said Gabriel, simply.
"Oh! she said so, did she?" said Arthur, still smiling.
"She did. And ef it wasn't you, who was it?"
"I really don't know," returned Arthur, carelessly; "possibly it might have been herself. From what I have heard of your wife, I think this might be one, and perhaps the most innocent, of her various impostures."
Gabriel cast down his eyes and for a moment was gravely silent. Then the look of stronger inquiry and intelligence that he had worn during the interview faded utterly from his face, and he began again in his old tone of apology. "For answerin' all my questions, I'm obliged to ye, Mr. Ashley, and it's right good in ye to remember ol' times, and ef I hev often thought hard on ye, ye'll kinder pass that by ez the nat'rel allowin's of a man ez was worried about a sister ez hasn't been heerd from sens she left with ye. And ye mustn't think this yer meetin' was o' my seekin'. I kinder dropped in yer," he added wearily, "to see a man o' the name o' Poinsett. He allowed to be yer at eleving o'clock—mebbee it's airly yet—mebbee I've kinder got wrong o' the place!" and he glanced apologetically around the room.
"My name is Poinsett," said Arthur, smiling, "the name of Philip Ashley, by which you knew me, was merely the one I assumed when I undertook the long overland trip." He said this in no tone of apology or even explanation, but left the impression on Gabriel's mind that a change of name, like a change of dress, was part of the outfit of a gentleman emigrant. And looking at the elegant young figure before him, it seemed exceedingly plausible. "It was as Arthur Poinsett, the San Francisco lawyer, that I made this appointment with you, and it is now as your old friend Philip Ashley that I invite your confidence, and ask you to tell me frankly the whole of this miserable business. I have come to help you, Gabriel, for your own—for your sister's sake. And I think I can do it!" He held out his hand again, and this time not in vain; with a sudden frank gesture it was taken in both of Gabriel's, and Arthur felt that the greatest difficulty he had anticipated in his advocacy of Gabriel's cause had been surmounted.
"He has told me the whole story, I think," said Arthur, two hours later, when Maxwell returned and found his associate thoughtfully sitting beside the window alone. "And I believe it. He is as innocent of this crime as you or I. Of that I have always been confident. How far he is accessory after the fact—I know he is not accessory before—is another question. But his story, that to me is perfectly convincing, I am afraid won't do before a jury and the world generally. It involves too much that is incredible, and damning to him secondarily if believed. We must try something else. As far as I can see, really, it seems that his own suggestion of a defence, as you told it to me, has more significance in it than the absurdity you only saw. We must admit the killing, and confine ourselves to showing excessive provocation. I know something of the public sentiment here, and the sympathies of the average jury, and if Gabriel should tell them the story he has just told me, they would hang him at once! Unfortunately for him, the facts show a complication of property interests and impostures on the part of his wife, of which he is perfectly innocent, and which are not really the motive of the murder, but which the jury would instantly accept as a sufficient motive. We must fight, understand, this very story from the outset; you will find it to be the theory of the prosecution; but if we can keep him silent it cannot be proved except by him. The facts are such that if he had really committed the murder he could have defied prosecution, but through his very stupidity and blind anxiety to shield his wife, he has absolutely fixed the guilt upon himself."
"Then you don't think that Mrs. Conroy is the culprit?" asked Maxwell.
"No," said Arthur; "she is capable, but not culpable. The real murderer has never been suspected nor his presence known to One Horse Gulch. But I must see him again, and Olly, and you must hunt up a Chinaman—one Ah Fe—whom Gabriel tells me brought him the note, and who is singularly enough missing, now that he is wanted."
"But you can't use a Chinaman's evidence before a jury?" interrupted Maxwell.