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For the moment Major Jen did not ask any more questions, for the very simple reason that he did not exactly know what course to take. Undoubtedly the tramp was telling the truth. He had no reason to conceal it; for in his own mind Jen quite acquitted him of any complicity in the crime. That so feeble and elderly a creature, debauched by intemperance, weak from insufficient food, should attack a vigorous young athlete like Maurice, was out of the question, even though he had the advantage of possessing the devil-stick. But here the question of the dried-up poison occurred to Jen. If the poison had evaporated by the lapse of time, the devil-stick must have been innocuous and incapable of inflicting death. Therefore, upon the evidence of the saturated handkerchief, the bag concealed in the turquoise-studded handle must have been refilled by Dido!--Dido, for the significant reason that she, inheriting the traditions of her Ashantee grandmother, alone must have been capable of manufacturing the deadly drug. To prove this assumption, a feasible one, the devil-stick was close at hand.,

"Don't talk like this. You are at my table. There is a stranger" (here he bowed ceremoniously to Etwald) "or shall I say a friend, present!",

Jen rose to leave the room, more wounded than he chose to confess.,

David took the devil-stick firmly in his grasp and compressed the handle. At once the iron tongue with its drop of venom appeared. With the sharp point he made an irregular wound on the palm of his hand, and cast the devil-stick on the table before him. A moment afterward, amid the silent horror of the crowded court, he fell down--dead.

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"Because Maurice was an unusually heavy man," replied the major, "and he could not have been carried off--that is, his body could not have been carried off," he corrected, with a sigh, "unless by two men. There may have been three, for all I know. But what is the meaning of it all?" cried Jen, in bewildered dismay. "Why was the poor lad's body stolen?",

"She is lovely, isn't she?" she replied ardently. "But her dress isn't half so gorgeous as yours," she added heartily.,

"I no know, massa. She weep! She ill! She make terrible bobbery, dat poo' girl. Massa, come an' see my lil missy dis day.",

"One of her lies," said Isabella, vehemently. "I did not know she had gone to your house until the servant told me. Then when I remembered how the devil-stick had been stolen I was afraid lest Dido should be contriving further mischief. Although it was late I could not rest in my bed. I tossed and turned with my brain burning with the fever. I felt that I must learn what was taking place at your house. My mother left me about two o'clock in the morning quite worn out with her watching. Then I rose, put on a dressing-gown, and escaped by the window. I reached your library at three o'clock. You know the rest."