“I swear it, doctor,” replied Belfield; adding, with great earnestness, “And you may take it from me, sir, that if I was not, I shouldn’t be here. It was you that convicted me last time, when I thought myself quite safe, so I know your ways too well to try to gammon you.”
“If you are innocent,” rejoined Thorndyke, “I will do what I can for you; and if you are not—well, you would have been wiser to stay away.”
“I know that well enough,” said Belfield, “and I am only afraid that you won’t believe what I am going to tell you.”
“I shall keep an open mind, at any rate,” replied Thorndyke.
“If you only will,” groaned Belfield, “I shall have a look in, in spite of them all. You know, sir, that I have been on the crook, but I have paid in full. That job when you tripped me up was the last of it—it was, sir, so help me. It was a woman that changed me—the best and truest woman on God’s earth. She said she would marry me when I came out if I promised her to go straight and live an honest life. And she kept her promise—and I have kept mine. She found me work as clerk in a warehouse and I have stuck to it ever since, earning fair wages and building up a good character as an honest, industrious man. I thought all was going well and that I was settled for life, when only this very morning the whole thing comes tumbling about my ears like a house of cards.”
“What happened this morning, then?” asked Thorndyke.
“Why, I was on my way to work when, as I passed the police station, I noticed a bill with the heading ‘Wanted’ and a photograph. I stopped for a moment to look at it, and you may imagine my feelings when I recognized my own portrait—taken at Holloway—and read my own name and description. I did not stop to read the bill through, but ran back home and told my wife, and she ran down to the station and read the bill carefully. Good God, sir! What do you think I am wanted for?” He paused for a moment, and then re plied in breathless tones to his own question: “The Camberwell murder!”
Thorndyke gave a low whistle.
“My wife knows I didn’t do it,” continued Belfield, “because I was at home all the evening and night; but what use is a man’s wife to prove an alibi?”
“Not much, I fear,” Thorndyke admitted; “and you have no other witness?”