"Nicholas Weaver's dying statement!" he ejaculated. "What do you know of Nicholas Weaver?"
Now I had spoken I was almost sorry I had said what I had. Yet I could not but notice the tremendous effect my words had produced.
"Never mind what I know," I replied. "Why do you take an interest in it?"
"I? I don't know anything about it," he faltered. "I hardly knew Nicholas Weaver."
"Indeed? Yet you want his statement."
"No, I don't. I don't know anything about his statement," he continued doggedly. "I want my papers. I don't care a rap about any one else's."
It was now my turn to be astonished. Evidently I had been on the wrong track from the beginning.
"If you don't want his statement, I'm sure I don't know what you do want," I rejoined, and I spoke the exact truth.
"Don't tell lies, Strong. You know well enough. Hand them over."
"Hand what over?"