"No, I am not. How else could he have got out? On one side was Klein, on the other St. Nicholas avenue, with many people who would have seen him. He escaped toward the river."
"Then you didn't kill him, after all?" asked the superintendent.
"Of the remainder of that fatal affair," said Dr. Jarvis, "I have only one explanation to give, and that will seem miraculous.
"His body was found buried in the garden. I was seen to bury it. I was seen carrying it there by night.
"But upon my soul, I did not know that I did it. The evidence has convinced me, that is all.
"And this is the explanation: Patrick Deever, after escaping from the grove, must have fallen and died. I must have gone there in my sleep, have found the body, and brought it back to the garden.
"My habit of sleep-walking is well known. I have done things which, from a scientific point of view, were far more marvelous than this."
"Nonsense!" cried Deever; "you were wide enough awake. Superintendent Byrnes will not swallow that story."
"Is it any more wonderful," said Nick, "than what I saw the doctor do in his laboratory?"
The story of that night he had already told to Deever and the superintendent.