“You do?” I cried.
“Yes.”
“But when I saw you, on Friday, you were equally sure of Miss Derwent’s innocence.”
“Ah! that was Friday! Besides, I have not said that I believe the young lady guilty; I merely say that I believe Maurice Greywood, and not Allan Brown, to be the name of the victim.”
“But, then, you must think that she killed him,” I insisted.
“Not necessarily. Have you never thought of the possibility that Allan Derwent (for we will assume that he was the man whom you saw in her apartment) might be the murderer?”
“No,” I confessed, “that had not occurred to me.”
“But it ought to have, for of all the theories we have as yet entertained, this one is by far the most probable. You see,” he continued, “you allow your judgment to be warped by your unwillingness to associate the young lady, even indirectly, with a crime.”
“Perhaps so,” I acknowledged.
“Now, I must tell you that, however innocent Miss Derwent may eventually prove to be, since my last talk with you I have become convinced that the murder was committed in her parlour, and nowhere else.” Mr. Merritt spoke very earnestly, leaning across the table to watch the effect on me of what he was saying.