"The poor girl was strangled with my window----"
"I know all about that," interrupted the policeman. "I soon found that out. But it don't prove as you took the cord yourself. I always had my doubts, seeing it was taken two or three days afore the murder. You wouldn't have made ready all that time. I says to myself, 'If he killed the girl, he did it in a rage, so he wouldn't have prepared the cord beforehand.'"
"I did not kill Tera," protested Johnson, vehemently. "I never saw her after she left my house, although I searched for her round this field, knowing it was her favourite walk. I loved her too well to injure a hair of her head. As to my debts--and you suspected, no doubt, that it was to pay them I killed her--they have been discharged."
"Who paid 'em?"
"There is no harm in telling you that, Slade. But promise me to keep what I tell you a secret until I bid you speak."
Filled with curiosity, Slade gave the required promise. When informed that Miss Arnott was Johnson's benefactor, he chuckled so significantly as to bring a blush to the pale cheeks of the minister. Nevertheless--and this was the main point--he entertained no suspicion against the woman; and still harped on the probability of Zara's guilt. "For she might have stolen the cord from your study," said he, eagerly; "them gipsies are always stealing things."
"Zara was never in my house that I know of," replied Johnson, dryly.
This declaration rather disconcerted Slade, but he rallied under the blow when a new idea struck him.
"I dare say that Tera herself took the cord, being a bright pretty thing."
"Why should she?"