"I wasn't looking at anything in particular," was the answer. "Coming in sight of your office naturally brought my thoughts back to that unsatisfactory business. I never was so baffled before."
"It is very strange who it could have been," observed Herbert. "I often think of it."
"Never so baffled before," continued the sergeant, as if there had been no interruption to his own words. "I could almost have been upon oath at the time, that the murderer was in the house; hadn't left it. And yet——"
"You could have been upon oath that it was I," interrupted Herbert.
"That's true. I could. But you had yourself chiefly to thank for it, Mr. Herbert Dare, through making a mystery of your movements that night. After you were cleared, my mind turned to that girl; and that, I found, was no go."
"What girl?" interrupted Herbert.
"The one in Honey Fair: your brother Anthony's old sweetheart. It wasn't her, though; I have proofs. Charlotte East had her at her house that evening, and kept her till twelve o'clock, when she went home to bed in her garret. Charlotte's going to try to make something of her again. And now I am baffled, and I don't deny it."
"To suspect any girl is ridiculous," observed Herbert Dare. "No girl, it is to be hoped, would possess the courage or the strength to accomplish such a deed as that."
"You don't know 'em as we police do," nodded the sergeant. "I was asking your father only a day or two ago, whether he could make sure of his servants, that they had not been in it——"
"Of our servants?" interrupted Herbert, in surprise. "What an idea!"