“I know something,” he said to Cornish, “of this malgamite business. We have had our eye upon Von Holzen for some time—if only on account of the death-rate of the city.”
They breathed more freely when they were out in the street. Cornish made some unimportant remark, which the other did not answer. So they walked on in silence. Presently, Cornish glanced at his companion, and was startled at the sight of his face, which was grey, and glazed all over with perspiration, as an actor's face may sometimes be at the end of a great act. Then he remembered that Roden had not spoken for a long time.
“What is the matter?” he asked.
“Didn't you see?” gasped Roden.
“See what?”
“The things they had laid on the table beside him. The things they found in his hands and his pockets.”
“The knife, you mean,” said Cornish, whose nerves were worthy of the blood that flowed in his veins, “and some letters?”
“Yes; the knife was mine. Everybody knows it. It is an old dagger that has always lain on a table in the drawing room at the Villa des Dunes.”
“I have never been in the drawing room at the Villa des Dunes, except once by lamplight,” said Cornish, indifferently.
Roden turned and looked at him with eyes still dull with fear.