"Not only have I not got the emerald," McTaggart went on with painfully clear diction, "but I know who has."
"Oh! Lord," thought the Home Secretary, "another of 'em!" Then he said aloud: "Ah? Oh! most interesting! Who?"
The other phrases he had heard during the last twenty-four hours crowded upon him, and he felt slightly faint.
"Yes," said McTaggart, continuing in a virile intonation, "I know who has it. Mr. Collop has it!"
"What?" shouted the Home Secretary, startled into a lucid interval of terseness. "Think what you are saying, young man! Collop! He wasn't in the house when it was lost! He's only just come."
"That's true," hesitated the journalist, slowly turning over in his own mind how he should get out of this mess. "But I tell you what, I tell you he's got it.... It's only an instinct," he added with sudden humility. "I have these odd feelings sometimes—and they are usually right. My mother was a Highland woman, and I am the seventh son of a seventh son. I don't pretend to any proof. All I say is"—more firmly—"Mr. Collop has got the emerald." He gathered confidence. He struck his left open palm with his right fist and said: "Mr. de Bohun, Mr. Collop has got the emerald ... and as for me, you may go through my pockets, here and now, you may have me searched, here and now if you will, and all my clothes and all the drawers in the room and every corner in the room, and anything else you will. And what's more," he said, as he saw still further weakness in that weak old face, "I mean to stay in this house till the emerald appears. I owe that to my honour."
"Oh, Mr. McTaggart," said the Home Secretary imploringly, and even as he spoke, he heard steps on the stairs and knew that they must be going down, "don't misunderstand me! I am not accusing you! I wouldn't accuse you for a moment! I am only saying ... I am only repeating to you what was told to me. Indeed, I should be treating you very ill had I not done so. Don't you agree?" and he actually seized the young man's hand.
McTaggart accepted the gesture.
"I am grateful, sir," he said simply. "I quite understand that a man in my position would be naturally suspected."