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Prisoner would have been suffering from the effects of the first attack when he left the Durrington hotel, and the excitement of the change and the fatigue of walking all day would have been very prejudicial to him, and account for the second and more violent attack." "How long do the after effects last of an attack of petit mal, I mean." "It depends on the violence of the attack.
"I shall have to go back to the beginning of our investigations to do so to the day when we motored from Durrington to Flegne," said the detective. "We went there with the strong presumption in our minds that Penreath was the criminal, because of suspicious facts previously known about him.
As soon as he had gone Colwyn turned to Ronald and earnestly said: "You may not know me, apart from our chance meeting at Durrington, but I am anxious to help you, if you are innocent." "I have heard of you. You are Colwyn, the private detective." "That makes it easier then, for you will know that I have no object in this case except to bring the truth to light.
All these things were done by the young man at the alcove table in the breakfast room of the Grand Hotel, Durrington, on an October morning in the year 1916; but Colwyn, who was only half an Englishman, and, moreover, had an original mind, did not attribute them to drink, morphia, or madness.
When I left the inn that morning I had no idea that I might fall under suspicion for having committed the murder, but I was desperately unhappy after what I had seen the night before, and I didn't care what I did or where I went. Instead of walking back to Durrington I struck across the marshes in the opposite direction.
"And now there are one or two other points I want you to make clear. Why did you register in the name of James Ronald at the Durrington Hotel?" "That was merely a whim. I was disgusted with London and society after my return from the front.
I happened to mention to a bootmaker at Durrington that my left heel had become jarred with walking. He recommended me to try rubber heels to lessen the strain, and he put them on for me. I had never worn them before, and found them very uncomfortable when I was walking along the marshes. They seemed to hold and stick in the wet ground."
He would not hear of the possibility of a mistake in his diagnosis of the accused's symptoms, but insisted that the accused, when he saw him at the Durrington hotel, was suffering from an epileptic seizure, combined with furor epilepticus, and was in a state of mind which made him a menace to his fellow creatures.
His hesitating answers to me in the wood, his fatalistic acceptance of the charge against him, seemed to me equivalent to a confession of guilt, so I abandoned my investigations and returned to Durrington. "I was wrong. It was a mistake for which I find it difficult to forgive myself.
I wouldn't mention this, but it's really affected my head, you know, and I don't think I'm always quite such a fool as this story makes me appear to be." "And your nerves were a bit rattled by the Zeppelin raid at Durrington, were they not?" said Colwyn sympathetically. "You seem to know everything," said the young man, flushing. "I am ashamed to say that they were."
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