It was not likely that I would tell all I knew to this local detective. Had Henri Jonet been present it would have been a different matter, but I saw at a glance that Warton was a very ordinary type of police-officer.

He asked me what took me to the house in Spring Grove on that fateful night. To this I merely replied with the one word—

"Curiosity."

Then he asked—

"Did you know the lady who was found stabbed a few feet from you?"

"Yes. I had met her," was my reply.

"Do you know the circumstances in which she was struck down?"

"I was not present then, therefore I could know nothing," was my evasive response.

"But the men in the house were friends of yours, were they not?" he asked.