"Who found it?"
"A couple of schoolboys. They turned it over to the police. One of my men has just got the story."
"Is it beyond question that it is Henry's?"
"Selby has identified it as the same knife that Henry had last night when we were there. He was in the neighborhood, it seems, and recognized the knife which the boys showed him on finding it. You remember that Selby had Henry's knife in his hands last night, and broke the point of the blade."
"Yes, I remember," said Burton. He was also recalling something else,--a skulking figure slipping away from the spot where the knife was found a very little later. "Doesn't it seem curious that the knife was only discovered now, considering how many people have been back and forth over the place all forenoon?"
"The knife seems to have been trodden into the earth by the crowd. That's how it was not found sooner."
"It seems to be a case of Carthage must be destroyed," said Burton, with some impatience. "Selby vowed this morning that he would find evidence against Henry. He conveniently is at hand to identify a knife as Henry's which he had in his own hands last night. It wouldn't require very much imagination to see a connection there. Selby hates Henry. Selby uses Henry's knife, and in the passion of the moment slips it forgetfully into his own pocket. Then at the right time he loses it at a place where its discovery will seem to implicate Henry in a crime--"
"Sh!" warned Ralston, with a look of comic dismay.
But the warning came too late. Burton, startled, looked up in some anxiety, and found Selby just back of him, glaring at him with a look that was like a blow from a bludgeon. There was nothing less than murder in his eye. But instead of speaking, he turned on his heel as Burton half rose, and walked out of the room.
"I had no idea there was any one within earshot," said Burton, with dismay in his face.