He had searched every likely nook and corner of the rooms,and found nothing.The absence of the bottle set him thinking.He became certain that the hand of another was in this.Ada had never left her room;therefore the bottle had been brought to her.And the one who brought it had taken it away again.Clara had been the last one to see her alive,and of course.He stopped with an unshaped thought in his mind,and then smiled at it for an absurdity.Tired with his exertions,he sat on the sofa,digging his elbow into the cushion,and instantly felt something hard underneath.The next moment he was on his feet,holding in his hands the bottle of brandy,half empty.He stared stupidly at the bottle that had sent Ada to her death and set him free,wondering who had paid for it and brought it into the house.As he turned the bottle in his hands,examining it with the morbid interest with which one examines a bloodstained knife,he heard a light tap on the door.
"Come in,"he cried,absorbed in his discovery.
He turned with the bottle in his hands,to find Clara standing in the doorway with a tremulous smile on her lips.But,as Jonah turned,her eye fell on the bottle.
"I've been a day findin'this,"said Jonah;"but now."An extraordinary change in Clara's face stopped the words on his lips.
The tremulous smile on her parted lips changed to a nervous grin,and her colour turned to a greyish white as she stared at the bottle,her eyes dilated with horror.For some moments there was a dreadful silence,in which Jonah distinctly heard Miss Giltinan giving an order downstairs.
Slowly he looked from Clara to the bottle.Again he stared at the frightened woman,and his mind leapt to a dreadful certainty.
"Come in,an'shut the door,"he said.His voice was little more than a whisper.
Clara obeyed him mechanically.
"Sit down,"he added,putting the bottle on the table.
For a while each stared at the other,too stunned to move or speak.
Jonah's world had fallen about his ears,and Clara's dreams of wealth mocked at her and fled.
Suddenly,in the deadly silence,Jonah began to speak.
"So it was you,was it?I never thought of that.I wonder what brought yer 'ere just as I found this?They say murder will out,an'I believe it now.If this 'appened to anybody else,'e'd go mad.But I can stand it.I'm tough.I fought my way up from the gutter.An'ye're the woman that I worshipped.For God's sake,woman,speak!Make up something that I can believe.Say yer never 'ad a 'and in this,an'I'll kiss the ground yer walk on.No,it wouldn't be any use.I couldn't believe the angel Gabriel,if he looked at me with that face.Yer paid for that bottle an'brought it 'ere.I saw that the moment yer set eyes on it.