"Perhaps not, but you must know his career. You owe it to yourself, and, pardon my saying so, you owe it to your wife to hear it."
"We'll leave my wife out of the question, thank you."
"Very good. That is of course your own affair. I will be as brief as I can. You must put two and two together yourself. In the first place, Murkard is not his name—what it is, does not matter. I'm an old friend of his family, so I dare not tell you. He started life with everything in his favour, consequently his fall was the greater."
"How did he fall?"
"He was deeply in debt. To get out of his difficulties he appropriated—I won't use a stronger term—some diamonds belonging to a lady in whose house he was staying. She was reluctantly compelled to prosecute, and he received a sentence of five years' penal servitude. He served his time, and then vanished from England and the ken of all those who knew him."
"Is this true, or are you lying to me?"
"Ellison, if you were not a little off your balance, I should resent that question. I am a man of honour, and I don't tell lies."
"I beg your pardon. I am not myself by a great deal to-night. Forgive me. Poor Murkard!"
"Poor devil! Yes, you may well say that. But don't you see, Ellison, if that happened once it might happen again. What is the evidence? You would not cheat yourself out of a valuable pearl, would you? What else could get at the safe? Only Murkard. He has been ill—delirious. Perhaps the value of the thing preyed upon his mind, and he may have taken it out of the safe while off his head. That is the charitable conclusion to come to. At any rate, his disappearance to-day is a point against him, you must admit that. If I were you I would certainly not believe him guilty till I had proved it, but just as certainly I should try to find him and see if he knows anything about it. D'you know, I rather think you owe as much, in common fairness, to him. If he denies any knowledge of the affair—well, in that case you must decide for yourself whether you know him well enough to believe him. Don't you think I'm right?"
"I do. Honestly, I do."