Twenty-nine
I don’t know how long I sat there—only a few minutes in reality, I suppose. Yet it seemed as though an eternity¹ hadpassed when I heard the door open and, turning my head, looked up to see Melchett entering the room.
He stared at Hawes asleep in his chair, then turned to me.
“What’s this, Clement³? What does it all mean?”
Of the two letters in my hand I selected one and passed it to him. He read it aloud in a low voice.
“My dear Clement,—It is a peculiarly unpleasant thing that I have to say. After all, I think I prefer writingit. We can discuss it at a later date. It concerns the recent peculations. I am sorry to say that I have satisfiedmyself beyond any possible doubt as to the identity of the culprit. Painful as it is for me to have to accuse anordained priest of the church, my duty is only too painfully clear. An example must be made and—”
He looked at me questioningly. At this point the writing tailed off in an undistinguishable scrawl⁵ where death hadovertaken the writer’s hand.
Melchett drew a deep breath, then looked at Hawes.
“So that’s the solution! The one man we never even considered. And remorse⁶ drove him to confess!”
“He’s been very queer lately,” I said.
Suddenly Melchett strode across to the sleeping man with a sharp exclamation⁷. He seized him by the shoulder andshook him, at first gently, then with increasing violence.
“He’s not asleep! He’s drugged! What’s the meaning of this?”
His eye went to the empty cachet box. He picked it up.
“Has he—”
“I think so,” I said. “He showed me these the other day. Told me he’d been warned against an overdose. It’s hisway out, poor chap. Perhaps the best way. It’s not for us to judge him.”
But Melchett was Chief Constable⁸ of the County before anything else. The arguments that appealed to me had noweight with him. He had caught a murderer and he wanted his murderer hanged.

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