Dollar was not altogether unprepared for this.
"You were there yourself, then, Lady Vera?"
"I should think I was!"
"It—it wasn't you who broke the window for him?"
"Of course it was! Yet nobody tried to find me as a witness! It is only by pure chance that I come out in time to save an innocent man's life, for innocent he is of everything but theft. I know—too well!"
Her voice was no longer under inhuman control; and there was something in its passionate pitch that sent a cold thrill of conviction down Dollar's spine. He gazed in horror at the unhappy girl, in her luxurious sables, drawn up to her last inch in the pitiless glare of his electric light; and even as he gazed—and guessed—all horror melted into the most profound emotion he had ever felt. It was she who first found her voice, and now it was calmer than it had been as yet.
"One thing more about the trial," she said. "What was the weapon he is supposed to have used?"
"His knife."
"Yet it seems to have been a small wound?"
"It had a small blade."