He leaned forward in his chair and, resting his hands on his knees, gazed at me somberly.
"Suppose I say he didn't kill himself?" slowly. "Suppose I say he was murdered? Suppose—good God—suppose I killed him myself?"
I drew back in stupefaction, but he hurried on.
"For the last two days I've been wondering—if I did it! He hadn't any weapon; I had one, his. I hated him that day; I had tried to save him, and couldn't. My God, Knox, I might have gone off my head and done it—and not remember it. There have been cases like that."
His condition was pitiable. I looked around for some whisky, but the best I could do was a little port on the sideboard. When I came back he was sitting with bent head, his forehead on his palms.
"I've thought it all out," he said painfully. "My mother had spells of emotional insanity. Perhaps I went there, without knowing it, and killed him. I can see him, in the night, when I daren't sleep, toppling over on to that table, with a bullet wound in his head, and I am in the room, and I have his revolver in my pocket!"
"You give me your word you have no conscious recollection of hearing a shot fired."
"My word before Heaven," he said fervently. "But I tell you, Knox, he had no weapon. No one came out of that room as I went in and yet he was only swaying forward, as if I had shot him one moment, and caught him as he fell, the next. I was dazed; I don't remember yet what I told the police."
The expression of fear in his eyes was terrible to see. A gust of wind shook the shutters, and he jumped almost out of his chair.
"You will have to be careful," I said. "There have been cases where men confessed murders they never committed, driven by Heaven knows what method of undermining their mental resistance. Yon expose your imagination to 'third degree' torture of your own invention, and in two days more you will be able to add full details of the crime."