After a pause he began to write; and the scratch, scratch of his pen was the only sound in the room for many minutes.
I took each half sheet as he finished it; and had no doubt he was writing the truth. He was completely in the toils of the old Jew, and the latter had forced him to do this under threats of ruin and exposure. He had been drawn into the toils of the Polish party and they had threatened to tell of the information which he had sold to them on former occasions. This was to be the price of his complete emancipation from them; and in dire fear of them he had consented.
"You were to receive twenty thousand marks. Put that in," I interrupted.
It was an excellent stroke. He was overwhelmed by the fact that I knew so much; and it settled all thought of any doubts about the rest of my knowledge.
"Let me leave that out," he whined.
"Do as I say," I rapped back sternly; and he obeyed. Then he went on to describe the means by which he had committed the theft. He had duplicate keys of all the locks in his father's office.
When he had finished the confession and signed it, I made him hand over those keys to me. With such a piece of evidence as they constituted in my hands, I cared comparatively little whether his statement were true or false. They would speak for themselves.
The writing of the confession with the breaks and pauses occupied nearly an hour, and I could see that he was nearly collapsing; so I told him to make the statement about Ziegler's murder very short.
"I have enough evidence without this at all," I declared; and he believed me. But I made him give such an account of his doings on the night, and particularly about the dagger he had used, where he had obtained it, and what he had done with it, as would enable me at need to find the proofs of his guilt.
When the ordeal was over he tottered back to the couch and lay down exhausted; and I gave him a few minutes while I ran through both his statements. Then I was ready to leave.