"I admit the breach of discipline," pursued the man doggedly; "but I want to say, here and now, that I've no more idea than anybody else how the——"
Smith snapped his fingers irritably.
"The facts—the facts!" he demanded. "What you don't know cannot help us!"
"Well, sir," said Morrison, clearing his throat again, "when the prisoner, Samarkan, was admitted, and I put him safely into his cell, he told me that he suffered from heart trouble, that he'd had an attack when he was arrested and that he thought he was threatened with another, which might kill him——"
"One moment," interrupted Smith, "is this confirmed by the police officer who made the arrest?"
"It is, sir," replied Colonel Warrington, swinging his chair around and consulting some papers upon his table. "The prisoner was overcome by faintness when the officer showed him the warrant and asked to be given some cognac from the decanter which stood in his room. This was administered, and he then entered the cab which the officer had waiting. He was taken to Bow Street, remanded, and brought here in accordance with some one's instructions."
"My instructions" said Smith. "Go on, Morrison."
"He told me," continued Morrison more steadily, "that he suffered from something that sounded to me like apoplexy."
"Catalepsy!" I suggested, for I was beginning to see light.
"That's it, sir! He said he was afraid of being buried alive! He asked me, as a favor, if he should die in prison to go to a friend of his and get a syringe with which to inject some stuff that would do away with all chance of his coming to life again after burial."