“Speak! Speak!” cried Mon. d’Imblevalle.
She did not speak. So he insisted:
“One word will clear you. One word of denial, and I will believe you.”
That word, she would not utter.
The baron paced to and fro in his excitement; then, addressing Sholmes, he said:
“No, monsieur, I cannot believe it, I do not believe it. There are impossible crimes! and this is opposed to all I know and to all that I have seen during the past year. No, I cannot believe it.”
He placed his hand on the Englishman’s shoulder, and said:
“But you yourself, monsieur, are you absolutely certain that you are right?”
Sholmes hesitated, like a man on whom a sudden demand is made and cannot frame an immediate reply. Then he smiled, and said:
“Only the person whom I accuse, by reason of her situation in your house, could know that the Jewish lamp contained that magnificent jewel.”