I could hear them talking, and it occurred to me that somebody on my left was hiding there, possibly with the idea of attacking and robbing them.
But this was not the case, and I believe now that this man on my left was the one who killed Sarah Gittings, and that he was dragging her body down the hillside for later disposal.
“With the two people, Mr. and Mrs. Dennis as I now know, at the foot of the hill, and myself more or less hidden above, something alarmed this man.
Possibly a park policeman.
I believe that this end of the park had been watched at night for some time.
“He ran toward me.
I could hear him corning, and he was breathing very hard.
I had the general impression of a tall man, in evening dress or dinner clothes, and wearing a soft cap drawn down over his face.
That was my impression of him.
I may be wrong.
“But I swear that this man was there, that he ran toward me, and that he almost ran over me.
So close was he that in passing he struck my stick with his foot and knocked it to a considerable distance.
He ran past me and disappeared along the hillside beyond, taking a slanting direction down into the park.
“When I had recovered I felt around for my stick, and unfortunately it was the blade which I found.
I cut my hand, and I bear a small scar from that cut to this day.
“I have not invented this.
The blood on my clothing and on my handkerchief that night was my own blood.
Mrs. Dennis saw me tying up my hand.
I went home and went to bed.
“The next morning I was not well.
My servant, Amos, brought me some coffee, and laid out my fresh clothing.
He picked up the handkerchief I had used the night before, and asked me if I had hurt myself.
I told him I had cut my hand but that it was nothing of any importance.
“I never thought of Sarah Gittings in connection with all this until I learned that day that she was missing.
“I began to worry then.
I had had an appointment to meet her, and I was uneasy.
I called up Florence Gunther at her office, but she was not there, and I had no knowledge of the house where she lived save the street number.
That is, I could not call her on the telephone.
“But in view of what had happened on the hillside the night before, I felt anxious.
Some time around noon of that day I went back to the Larimer lot and walked over it. I also examined the hillside. But I found nothing suspicious.
“I went to the Bell house that afternoon, but Sarah was still missing, and in addition the house had been entered the night before and Sarah’s room had been searched.
In leaving the Bell house I again went back to the hillside.
I located the spot where I had rested, and went to the left of it along the hill for a considerable distance. I found nothing suspicious and no trace of Sarah Gittings.
“The next day I had a desperate letter from Florence Gunther.
She had seen in the papers that Sarah was still missing, and she was certain that she had been killed.
She begged me not to bring her name into it; that it meant the loss of her position, and maybe physical danger also.
Also she asked me to destroy the letter, and I did.
I should have acted anyhow; as it turned out, my silence did not save her.
“But in that interval several things had happened.
While I was debating what to do Sarah’s body had been found, and she had been stabbed.
Not only that, but I had been on the spot, or close to it, at the very time the reports said she had been killed.
“Walter Somers and I made the identification that day together, and Walter drove me home.
I let myself into the house through the garden, and I found Amos in the front hall with the sword-stick in his hands.
He was trying to get the blade back when I found him.
“I knew then that he suspected me.
Later on I sent him out and examined the stick.
There was a little dried blood on the blade, and some bits of grass and earth.
That frightened me. I took it to the lavatory downstairs and washed it, and then I hid it. I put it in my liquor closet in the lower hall, and locked it there.
“But things grew worse.
Mary Martin had produced the uniform, and it was evident that Sarah Gittings had written to me, as she had claimed.