“That’s so,” he said. “We’ve discussed them so much that I had entirely lost sight of the fact. Of course, that’ll free Oldbeg when it is brought out in testimony.”
“If it is brought out,” Trafford said.
“But surely,” McManus urged; “you will not let so important a matter pass—let alone the fact that it is the cause of injustice to Oldbeg, who surely has suffered enough already.”
“Mr. McManus,” said Trafford solemnly; “I’m at work to find the murderer of Mr. Wing. That’s the one purpose I have before me, and it is what the best interests of the public demand. If Oldbeg or another suffers unjustly for the moment, it is that the guilty man may suffer in the end. I’m sorry for Oldbeg, but I’m not responsible for the turn matters have taken. At present, the parties who are interested in these papers believe I have them, and the work I’m doing requires them to continue so to believe. I don’t conceive it to be my duty to produce at the inquest testimony that will undeceive them.”
“Aren’t you taking a tremendous responsibility?” McManus asked.
“It’s my business to take responsibility. I’ve taken it often to the extent of risking my life—I may do so again; but when there’s a murderer at large and I’m set to find him, I don’t stop because my life is endangered or because another is put to inconvenience. If Oldbeg’s held for the murder, it’ll be inconvenient for him, but not so inconvenient as it would be for me to be murdered because I’m on the track of the right man.”
“And you are on the track of the right man?” McManus demanded.
“I’ve been on his track from the moment I entered that library and knew that it had been searched by the man who fired the fatal bullet. I’ve been on his track from that day to this, and I shall keep on it until I catch up with him or he kills me; but as surely as that last happens, he’ll swing. It isn’t given to any man to commit murder twice and cover his tracks. If I go down, it’ll end in his going up.”
“But really, Mr. Trafford, you take this thing more seriously than I imagined. You’re not in earnest in this talk of an attempt to murder you!”
“So much in earnest that I never go out without thinking I may not come back.”