Still he made no reply, but read on.
“It can scarcely be that you are grown a politician again,” continued she, laughingly, “and pretend to care for Austria or for Italy.”
“This is all about Paten,” said he, eagerly. “There's the whole account of it.”
“Account of what?” cried she, trying to snatch the paper from him.
“Of his death.”
“His death! Is he dead? Is Paten dead?” She had to clutch his arm as she spoke to support herself, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she kept her feet. “How was it? Tell me how he came by his death. Was it O'Shea?”
“No, he was killed. The man who did it has given himself up, alleging that it was in an altercation between them; a pistol, aimed at his own breast, discharged its contents in Paten's.”
She tore the paper from his hand, and, tottering over to a bank on the roadside, bent down to read it. Holmes continued to talk over the event and all the details, but she did not hear what he said. She had but senses for the lines she was perusing.
“I thought at first it was O'Shea in some disguise. But it cannot be; for see, they remark here that this man has been observed loitering about Baden ever since Paten arrived. Oh, here's the mystery,” cried she. “His name is Collier.”
“That was an old debt between them,” said Holmes.