I must keep that secret, I felt sure.

Lastly, there was not a living soul to back me up in my story of the quarrel that preceded the captain's death, of the man who escaped by way of the garden.
Alas, thought I, even the most stupid policeman can not fail to look upon me with the eye of suspicion! In about twenty minutes three men arrived from Scotland Yard.

By that time I had worked myself up into a state of absurd nervousness.

I heard Walters let them in; heard them climb the stairs and walk about in the room overhead.

In a short time Walters knocked at my door and told me that Chief Inspector Bray desired to speak to me.