CHAPTER XXV

SOUTHBOURNE’S SUSPICIONS

You! What had you to do with it?” I ejaculated.

“Well, Freeman was hunting on a cold scent; yearning to arrest some one, as they always do in a murder case. He’d thought of you, of course. Considering that you were on the spot at the time, I wonder he didn’t arrest you right off; but he had formed his own theory, as detectives always do, and in nine cases out of ten they’re utterly wrong!”

“Do you know what the theory was?” I asked.

“Yes. He believed that the murder was committed by a woman; simply because a woman must have helped to ransack the rooms during Cassavetti’s absence.”

“How did he know that?”

“How did you know it?” he counter-queried.