"At that moment Corbut entered, for the door of room B was not locked.
"In some way they bribed him to keep silence. They sent him into room A, where he locked the connecting door on that side.
"Jones fastened it on the side of room B and fled. It was then that Gaspard saw him coming out of room B. And that's what mixed the case so badly.
"It gave us the wrong arrangement of men in those rooms. That was the only reason why I ever doubted Jones' guilt. I was convinced that the man who had brought the woman to the house was not the man who had shot her.
"You did not know, Mr. Hammond, that when you told me, in my house, that you were the man in room A, that you practically confessed to being the murderer."
At these words, Hammond gave a dry and painful gasp. He saw what an escape he had had.
"As to the two women," Nick continued, "it is easy to read the secret.
"Jones had two wives. The real wife, now dead, lived in the flat the address of which Jones gave me. This woman lived in the Fifty-eighth street flat, where Corbut was murdered.
"Jones divided his time between them. He really loved this one and wished to be rid of the other.
"His true wife surprised his secret at last, and it led her to her death.