"I have not quite done yet," said the sick man. "What I am now about to tell you may seem of little or no consequence to you--in other words, you may take a different view of it from the one taken by me--but, in any case, it is only right that you should be told."
Clement sat down again, and waited in silence till Ephraim was ready to continue.
"You may remember," he resumed, "that at the Bank there is a spiral staircase which gives access to a couple of rooms under the roof, used chiefly as a storage place for old ledgers and documents of various kinds connected with the business?"
Clement nodded.
"The staircase in question," continued Ephraim, "is exactly opposite the door of Mr. Hazeldine's room, and anyone going up it, or coming down it, can, if so minded, obtain a view of the interior of the office through the fanlight over the door--a fact which my curiosity had led me to take advantage of on more occasions than one. On the night of Mr. Hazeldine's death, after John Brancker had gone and I had put my own work away, led by a vague curiosity, I stole halfway up the staircase and peered through the fanlight. Mr. Hazeldine's table, with Mr. Hazeldine seated at it, were clearly visible to me. Sir--Mr. Clement--while I was looking, I saw your father take out of a drawer in his table the very knife which was found near him on the floor next morning, and with which he was said to have been stabbed! He stared at it for a moment or two and tested its point with his thumb; then he unbuttoned his waistcoat, and with his left hand seemed to feel for the exact spot over his heart. Then he let the knife drop, and leaning forward over the table, he covered his face with his hands. With that, being not a little scared, I waited to see no more."
Clement sat with ashen face and horror-fraught eyes, waiting till the shock which Ephraim's words had caused him should in some measure have spent its force.
"You drew an inference of some kind from what you saw through the fanlight," he at length contrived to say, "What was the inference?"
"That Mr. Hazeldine came by his death by his own hand," replied Ephraim in a whisper.
When Clement Hazeldine called on his patient next morning he found him delirious, and on the following day Ephraim died.