“Come, Doctor,” he urged, leaning forward and placing his hand on my knee, “don’t you think it would be better for all parties for you to tell me what you know? I am as anxious to shield the innocent as you can be. By withholding valuable information you may force me to put a young lady through a very trying and public ordeal, which I am sure might be easily spared her, if I only knew a few more facts of the case.”
This last argument decided me, and making a virtue of necessity I gave him a minute account of all I had seen and heard. When I came to describing the man’s prolonged search Mr. Merritt nodded several times with great satisfaction.
“Can’t you tell me a little more how this man looked?” he eagerly inquired. “You must have seen him pretty clearly while he was moving around that lighted room. Had he any hair on his face?”
“Well,” I confessed, “it is a funny thing, but I can’t for the life of me remember; I’ve tried to; sometimes I think he was clean shaven, and again I am sure he had a small moustache.”
The detective glared at me for a moment; it was difficult for him to forgive such aggravating lack of memory. To be given such an opportunity and to foozel it! He heaved a sigh of resignation as he inquired:
“Can you remember how he was dressed?”
“Oh, yes,” I replied with alacrity, anxious to retrieve myself, “he had on a white shirt and dark trousers, and his sleeves were rolled back.”
“Did he close the windows before he left?”
“Yes, and he pulled down the blinds also.”