“My name? I don’t know what my name is.”
“Not know your name? Come, that won’t do. Tell me what your name is.”
“The lady does not know her name; do you not hear her say so? You will doubt the lady’s word, Mr. Symonds, at your peril.”
“Remove your hand; do you wish to dislocate my shoulder? You forget your own strength, as well as other things, Mr. Ferguson. If you will not tell me who this lady is, and she herself cannot, then I must detain her till inquiries have been made.”
“Detain her? What do you mean?”
“This lady has forced her way into this room, and I have myself heard her, with my own ears, accuse herself, at least, of participation in the murder of this unfortunate man.”
His colleague chimed in: “There can be no sort of doubt upon that point. I heard her too. She said, ‘I killed him.’”
He went to the other side of the bed, and replaced the sheet over the dead man’s head and face. The policeman put in his word.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but she’s been behaving in the most extraordinary manner in the other room. It seems, from what she’s been saying, and doing, that she was there when the gentleman was being murdered, and she’s been acting it all over to herself again as it were. Struck him with a great knife, she said she did.”
“You heard her admit that she struck him with a knife?”