"My uncle made the pin—engraved it, I mean. He was a marvelously expert engraver in the firm of Craig, Marsden & Co. After his death I came across a memorandum that gave away the secret. Not the solution of the cipher, exactly, he didn't know that himself. But a statement that he had engraved the pin for Mrs. Pell, and that, with the receipt for the work itself, it formed a direction as to where the jewels were hidden."
"And you demanded these things of her?"
"Yes, I told her the jewels belonged partly to my uncle."
"Did they?"
"No; not exactly, though Mrs. Pell had promised him some small stones, and I'm not sure she gave them to him."
"Go on, tell it all."
"I'm willing to, for my game is up, and I want to get away from a murder charge! My heavens, I'd never think of killing anybody!"
"Wait a minute, you say you reached the house about eleven-thirty. How did you come?"
"I was in my little car. I left that in the woodland road."
"And that's when Sam saw you."