"So that's all. I wish you had told me all this at Jarlchester."
"I tell you I was afraid to do so. Look how black the case appears against me. I fight with a man here; I follow him down to Jarlchester; I have morphia pills in my possession; I go into his room at night, and in the morning he is found dead of morphia. Why, if I had told all this, I would have been arrested. Florry's name would have come up. That infernal Monsieur Judas would have put his spoke in, and I would very probably have been hanged on circumstantial evidence."
"I don't wonder you were afraid," replied Octavius, thoughtfully; "but seeing I was your friend, you might just as well have trusted me."
"You are a detective."
"I am your old schoolfellow."
"Then you believe I am innocent?"
"I do. If you were guilty, you would not have told a story so dead against yourself."
"Will you shake hands, then?" asked Roger, colouring and holding out his hand.
"By all means," replied Fanks, solemnly, and the two friends shook hands with honest fervour.
"Now, then," said Octavius, when this ceremony was concluded, "the next thing to be done is to find out who killed Melstane."