attention--but he was still conscious that he was under a certain amount
of suspicion. More than that, he felt convinced that the police would keep
an eye on him that night. Ayscough, indeed, had more than hinted that that
would probably be done. For anything he knew, some plain-clothes man might
be shadowing him even then--anyway, there had been no mistaking the almost
peremptory request of the inspector that he should report himself at the
police station in the morning. It was no use denying the fact--he was
suspected, in some degree.

He knew where the grounds of suspicion lay--in his possession of two
rings, which were undoubtedly very similar to the rings which lay in the
tray that he and the detective had found on the table in the back-parlour
of the pawnshop. It needed no effort on the part of one who had already
had considerable experience in the construction of plots for stories, to
see how the police would build up a theory of their own. Here, they would
say, is a young fellow, who on his own confession, is so hard up, so
penniless, indeed, that he has had to pawn his watch. He has got to know
something of this particular pawnshop, and of its keepers--he watches the
girl leave; he ascertains that the old man is alone; he enters, probably
he sees that tray of rings lying about; he grabs a couple of the rings;
the old man interrupts him in the act; he seizes the old man, to silence
his outcries; the old man, feeble enough at any time, dies under the
shock. A clear, an unmistakable case!

What was he, Lauriston, to urge against the acceptance of such a theory?
He thought over everything that could be said on his behalf. The
friendliness of Zillah and her cousin Melky towards him could be
dismissed--that, when it came to it, would weigh little against the cold
marshalling of facts which a keen legal mind would put into the opposite
scale. His own contention that it was scarcely probable that he should