"That's a pity! Perhaps you've shown the letter to some one. We want two witnesses, you know!"
"I informed my friend Vandory early this morning."
"Oh! ah! I understand,—yes, early this morning!—about the time when I came to the village and commenced examining the witnesses, eh? Is that all you have to say?"
"No!"
"From your hesitating manner I take it that you knew of the murderer's intentions."
"You have no right, sir," cried Tengelyi, "to construe any of my words in that sense!"
"Sir!" retorted the justice, "it's mere folly to deny the fact. You admit that you had reason to suppose that Mr. Catspaw was possessed of your papers; and, supposing there ever existed a letter of Viola's to you, you must have known that the robber intended to obtain the papers by means of a crime."
"Is this all?—no! more is behind!" continued Mr. Skinner, after a pause. "Your own confession proves that you were not only privy to the murder, but that you acted the part of one who stimulates and instigates the murderer. It is quite clear that Viola had no interest in the papers, nor would he have risked his life for them unless an artificial interest was created in his mind. And whose advantage did that artificial interest tend to? whose interests did it serve to promote?—Yours, and only yours!"
Tengelyi would have answered; but Mr. Skinner continued, with great pathos:
"And who is it that is guilty of so heinous a crime?—a notary! a man whose duty it is to prosecute the breakers of the law, and who imposes upon the county and the sheriff by making his house a den for thieves and robbers! This case," added Mr. Skinner, turning to Kenihazy, "is beyond our jurisdiction. It is our duty to send the prisoner to the county gaol, to prevent his being liberated by Viola and his other comrades."