"Don't say that much, Monsieur," said Madame Alpenny shrilly. "Done my worst, do you declare? Ah, but no. Not yet have I said what I came to say."
"I know what you have come to say," retorted Hench, taking the bull by the horns, which was the best thing to do. "You mean to accuse me of murdering my uncle."
Madame Alpenny looked rather taken aback by this cool defiance, but accepted the situation with a vicious pluck. "And is it not so?"
"It isn't worth my while to reply to so ridiculous a question," said Hench, shrugging his square shoulders. "You accuse me. On what grounds, pray?"
"Plenty of grounds, Monsieur; plenty of grounds. You obeyed that advertisement and met your uncle to murder him and get the property."
"When I didn't know that he was my uncle, or that I would inherit any property in the event of his death?"
"You did know that he was your uncle," said the woman furiously. "Those papers at your lawyers'----"
"I did not see them until nine days later," interrupted the young man.
"_You say so," she sneered, "How can you prove that?"
"My lawyers can prove it."