"It is very simple. Lawrence left his cane here one evening, and the next morning, when you went for your walk, you took it in mistake for your own. It was just about the size and weight of this one, and you would not be likely to notice the difference since it was not the cane you commonly carried. You broke the cane, and put the pieces under the edge of the sidewalk. They were found there immediately after Fullerton's murder, and as Lawrence's name was engraved around the knob, they seemed to connect him circumstantially with the murder. It has been the one point we could not get around."
"But didn't he remember that he had left it here? I can't understand why that did not occur to him," Miss Wolcott exclaimed.
"Can't you imagine why he would not allow himself to remember?" Lyon asked, bluntly.
"No. I don't understand you. Allow himself to remember? Why not? If it was merely a question of where he had left his cane, it would not have been a serious matter to answer, would it?"
"But suppose he, too, thought, as all the rest of us did, that the cane had been the instrument of Fullerton's death?"
"But it was not!"
"No, but it seemed so. And with that seeming fact before him, he could not defend himself by saying he had left it here without throwing the same suspicion upon someone in this house."
"But he could not entertain so absurd a suspicion!"
"It was far from absurd. Do you remember you told me that he had said that a good stout cane was better than a policeman's whistle, and that he advised you to carry one of your grandfather's sticks if you had to go out at night?"
"Yes, I remember very well. Of course it was all in jest. We were not talking seriously then."