"I am here," he muttered, "I have killed her, or, at least, she is dying—lying there on the floor, dying—I have to get out before the servants break in—I can't get out, there's no way I can get out. Mr. Stone, he didn't get out, because——"
"Because he wasn't in!" interrupted Fleming Stone, excitedly. "Oh, Fibs, do you see it that way too?"
"Sure I do! Fancy anybody untyin' a lot o' ropes, and freein' the lady and makin' a getaway, ropes and all, in two or three minutes, and besides, he couldn't get out!"
Fibsy stated this as triumphantly as if it were a new proposition. "The upset table," he went on, "the smashed lamp, with its long, green cord, the poor lady's dress open at the throat——"
"Yes," Stone nodded, eagerly, "yes,—and I daresay she had lace frills at her wrists and neck——"
"Of course she did! Oh, the plucky one!"
And then the two investigators put their heads together and reconstructed to their own satisfaction the whole scene of Mrs. Pell's tragic death.
"I'll go right over to see Young again," Stone said, at last, "and you skip around to see Mrs. Bowen; she'll tell you more than Miss Clyde can."
"Of course she will, and the dominie, too."
After a long argument, Fleming Stone persuaded Young that it would really be better for him to tell the truth, as to his movements on that fatal Sunday, than to persist in his falsehoods.