"I cannot say. Perhaps I might."
"And you can stand there, Mr. Brown and deliberately avow that you did not know a murder had been committed?" interposed the sternly condemning voice of Mr. Greatorex.
"On my sacred word of honour, I declare to you, sir, that no suspicion of it at the time occurred to me," answered the clerk, turning his eyes with fearless honesty on Mr. Greatorex. "When I got to learn what had really happened--which was not for some weeks--I wondered at myself. All I could suppose was, that the fear and apprehension I lay under on my own score, had rendered me callous to other impressions."
"Was it you who went in, close upon the departing heels of Mr. Bede Greatorex, and did this cruel thing?" asked Judge Kene, with quiet emphasis, as he gazed in the face of the narrator.
"No," as quietly, and certainly as calmly, came the answer. "I had no cause to injure Mr. Ollivera. I never saw him in my life. I am not sure that I knew there was a barrister of the name. I don't think I ever heard of him until after he was in the grave where he is now lying."
"But--you must have known that Mr. Ollivera was sojourning in Mrs. Jones's house at the same time that you were?
"I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas; I did not know that anyone was lodging there except myself. Miss Rye, whom I saw for a few minutes occasionally, never mentioned it, neither did the servant, and they were the only two inmates I conversed with. For all I knew, or thought, Mrs. Jones occupied the drawing-room herself. I once saw her sitting there, and the maid was carrying out the tea-tray. No," emphatically concluded the speaker, "I did not know Mr. Ollivera was in the house: and if I had known it, I should not have sought to harm him."
The words were simple enough; and they were true. Judge Kene, skilled in reading tones and looks, saw that much. The party felt at a non-plus: as far as Alletha Rye went, the taking her into custody appeared to have been a mistake.
"You will swear to this testimony of yours, Mr.--Winter?"
"When you please. The slight amount of facts--the sounds--that reached me in regard to what took place in Mr. Ollivera's room, I have related truthfully. Far from Miss Rye's having had aught to do with it, she was not even in the house at the time: I affirm it as before heaven."