"Come on, and don't make a disturbance," the officer said.
"But I tell you it is a mistake. You'll suffer for it. It is not a criminal offense to try to get married."
"Perhaps not," I said, taking the word from the police officer without warrant. "You are under arrest because I charge you with the murder of Alfred Barker."
I never saw a man faint before. He crumpled up like a collapsed balloon. We lifted him to the sidewalk so that the car could go on, and the patrolman called up the wagon. But before Garney came back to consciousness, I had lifted the moustached lip that masked his narrow jaw. The crowded teeth were pushed out on each side to form a V, exactly like the model made from the apple bitten in Barker's office.
[CHAPTER XIX]
CARDS ON THE TABLE
The crowd dispersed as the patrol wagon took Garney and the officer away, but one man lingered and fell into step with me as I turned away. It was Mr. Ellison. I had not noticed him in the crowd.
"What's all this?" he asked, twisting his head to look up at me, bird-fashion.
"Walk with me, and I'll tell you," I said. "I am going down to see Benbow."
And as we walked I told him of the surprising developments of the last few hours,--that Garney, the Latin tutor, and Gene's friend, was the man with crooked teeth who had been eating apples in Barker's inner office while waiting for his victim, who had observed and recognized my locket; and that Garney was Diavolo the hypnotist who had threatened to kill his partner, Barker, if his identity were disclosed. (I may say here, to anticipate events which befell later, that this identity was absolutely established by Dr. Shaw, the dentist who had extracted a tooth for Diavolo,--the first case in the law reports, I believe, where identity was established by the teeth. By that time every link was so clear that Garney's confession was hardly needed,--though he did break down in the end and make a plea of "Guilty.")