could incriminate him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right

shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been cut near the

nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had been

to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed

there came doubtless from the same source. He denied strenuously having ever

seen Mr. Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes in his

room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. As to Mrs. St.

Clair’s assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the window,

he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming. He was removed,

loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the inspector remained upon the

premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue.


“And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had

feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair’s coat, and not Neville St.

Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And what do you think they

found in the pockets?”


“I cannot imagine.”


“No, I don’t think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with

pennies and half-pennies—421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It was no

wonder that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a human body is a

different matter. There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the house. It

seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body

had been sucked away into the river.”


“But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room.

Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?”


“No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that this

man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the window, there is no human

eye which could have seen the deed. What would he do then? It would of course

instantly strike him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments. He would