"You know that's a lie. But that's a matter for the court room. There are greater things. In the first place—"
"About that other—" Still he clung to his one shred of a story, his only possibility of hope. Conscience had prompted the first outcry; now there was nothing to do but follow the lead. "I don't know anything. She told me—that's all. And she's dead now."
"Ah, oui!" Ba'tiste had edged forward. "She is dead. And because she is dead—because she have suffer and die, you would lay to her door murder! Eet is the lie! Where then is the ten thousand dollar she took—if she kill my Julienne? Eh? Where is the gun with which she shot her? Ah, you cringe! For why you do that—for why do you not look at Ba'teese when he talk about his Julienne! Eh? Is eet that you are afraid? Is eet that your teeth are on your tongue, to keep eet from the truth? Oui! You are the man—you are the man!"
"I don't know anything about it. She told me she did it—that those were Mrs. Renaud's things."
"Ah! Then you have nev' see that ring, which my Julienne, she wore on her finger. Ah, no? You have nev' see, in all the time that you come to Ba'teese house, the string of bead about her neck. Oui! Eet is the lie, you tell. You have see them—eet is the lie!"
And thus the battle progressed, the old man storming, the frowning, sullen captive in the chair replying in monosyllables, or refusing to answer at all. An hour passed, while Tabernacle crowded the little lobby and overflowed to the street. One by one Ba'tiste brought forth the trinkets and laid them before the thin-faced man. He forced them into his hands. He demanded that he explain why he had said nothing of their presence in the lonely cabin, when he had known them, every one, from having seen them time after time in the home of Renaud. The afternoon grew old. The sheriff arrived,—and still the contest went on. Then, with a sudden shifting of the head, a sudden break of reserve, Thayer leaned forward and rubbed his gnarled hands, one against the other.
"All right!" he snapped. "Have it your way. No use in trying to lay it on the woman—you could prove an alibi for her. You're right. I killed them both."
"Both?" They stared at him. Thayer nodded, still looking at the floor, his tongue licking suddenly dry lips.
"Yeh, both of 'em. One brought on the other. Mrs. Renaud and John Corbin—they called him Tom Langdon back East."