"Ah," grunted Slade, "there's more than you, sir, as wants information of that kind. But why are you so perticler, may I ask, if it ain't no offence?"
"For two reasons," rejoined Johnson, quietly. "One is, that I wish the assassin of my poor ward to be secured and punished; the other is that I desire to clear my own character from the suspicion which has fallen upon it."
"You mean, sir, as folks suspect you of the murder?"
"I do; but I need hardly say that I am innocent."
"Well," said the policeman, reflectively, "of course, sir, you're bound to say that to save your own neck. I thought as you did it yourself one time, for there ain't no denyin' as the evidence is dead against you. But what I've found now 'as altered me a bit."
"Really! Then you are good enough to exonerate me in your own mind? You don't believe me guilty?" said Johnson, ironically.
"Not as the principal, anyway; it's come to me as this poor girl was strangled by a woman."
"A woman? How do you know that?"
"'Cos I found this on the very spot where the girl's body lay," and Slade opened his hand. In the palm lay a golden ear-ring, which Johnson recognized as Miss Arnott's!