"And there was no one with you? You were quite alone all the time?"
"I was quite alone."
I talked with him for some time, but there was nothing more definitely bearing upon the problem which was forming in my mind,--and which was a very different problem from the question how to handle the case of a confessed murderer. I went away with this new and puzzling question putting everything else out of my mind,--Was his confession true? Of course on the face of it, the question looked absurd. Men don't go about confessing to crimes they have not committed,--unless there is some powerful reason for their belying themselves. If Eugene Benbow was lying, he had chosen his position well to escape detection. I could see that it would have been hard to defend him in the face of such circumstantial evidence as surrounded him, if he had been arrested on suspicion instead of on his own confession. And yet--I could not get rid of the idea that he was concealing or inventing something which might put a very different light on things. He might not have recognized me as the man who sat waiting in Barker's office, he might even have failed to notice that I was in evening dress, but how explain away the eaten apple? A man very fond of apples might have eaten one while waiting and given no special thought to the matter, but a man who didn't like apples wouldn't pick one up casually and eat it without taking notice of what he was doing. And those apple parings were quite fresh. That was a small but obstinate fact. I could not forget it. Had someone been with Benbow? Then I remembered his vagueness, his failure to identify me as the strange visitor, and I was inclined to change my question to--Had Benbow been there at all?
And yet what possible motive could he have for making a false confession? The only reasonable explanation would be that he was trying to shield someone. But no one else had as yet been accused. The psychology of that situation was not complete. I must try to understand the boy's nature, before theorizing.
And, first of all, I must verify my facts.
[CHAPTER V]
BERTILLON METHODS AND SOME OTHERS
The first thing to do, I saw clearly, was to go back to Barker's office and verify my recollections of the place, particularly of the apple peelings. Fortune favored me. The rooms had been locked up the night before by the police, and were therefore undisturbed, and the chief did not hesitate, under the present conditions, to give me the keys.
"Our work is done," he said complacently. "The murderer is found."
I didn't remind him that the force had had precious little to do with putting Eugene Benbow behind bars. I took the keys and went to the place of the tragedy.