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desperate efforts to get me to come back to him. The horrible thing was that I had no hold over him⁠—the secret which would have ruined him once had no terrors for him then⁠—so I'd nothing but his bare word to depend on. And I'm afraid that wasn't much to go upon.

"I knew nothing about what happened on Tuesday till I saw it in the papers. I still don't know how or why the police got the idea that it was Mr. Davenant who murdered my husband. Of course, if they came to know all that I've been telling you now, they'd think it was a certainty. But I've told you about it, because I thought it was best to let you know everything, and then perhaps you could help."

"Of course I should be awfully glad to do anything I could to⁠—well, to establish the innocence of an innocent man. Was that your idea, Miss Rendall-Smith?"

"Mr. Reeves, do you believe at all in a woman's intuitions? Probably you don't, because you go in for clues and all that sort of thing. But I assure you I'm as certain that Mr. Davenant never laid a hand on my husband as I'm certain that you're sitting in that chair. I can't explain the feeling; I can't analyse it; it's like a sort of sixth sense to me. I've always had these strong intuitions, and they've always been right. So I'm asking you, quite fearlessly, to work on this case as hard as you can, and examine all the evidence you've got. I'm perfectly certain that the effect of that will be