"
"It is not a question of looks or voice, but of facts. That he
should have alluded to the fire in the blue room is proof enough
of John Dwerrihouse's identity. How did he look?"
"Older, I thought; considerably older, paler, and more anxious."
He has had enough to make him look anxious, anyhow, "said my friend,
gloomily, "be he innocent or guilty."
"I am inclined to believe that he is innocent," I replied. "He showed
no embarrassment when I addressed him, and no uneasiness when the
guard came round. His conversation was open to a fault. I might
almost say that he talked too freely of the business which he had
in hand."
"That again is strange, for I know no one more reticent on such
subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand
pounds in his pocket?"
"He did."
"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right--"
"What idea?"
"Well, she fancies--women are so clever, you know, at putting
themselves inside people's motives --she fancies that he was
tempted, that he did actually take the money, and that he has been
concealing himself these three months in some wild part of the
country, struggling possibly with his conscience all the time,
and daring neither to abscond with his booty nor to come back and
restore it.
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