“What if I refuse to answer them?”
“In that case the four walls of a prison will hold you in less than half an hour. In your possession I find a ring which was on the finger of Mr. Osmond the night he was murdered. Less than that has brought many a better man than you to the gallows: be careful that it does not land you there?”
“If you know anything of the affair at all, you must know that the murderer of Mr. Osmond was tried and found guilty long ago.”
“What proof have you—what proof was there adduced at the trial, that Lionel Dering was the murderer of Percy Osmond? Did your eyes, or those of any one else, see him do the bloody deed? Wretch! You knew from the first that he was innocent! If you yourself are not the murderer, you know the man who is.”
Again Janvard was silent for a little while. His eyes were bent on the floor. He was considering deeply within himself. At length he spoke, but it was in the same sullen tone that he had used before.
“What guarantee have I that when I have told you anything that I may know, the information will not be used against me to my own harm?”
“You have no guarantee whatever. I could not give you any such promise. For aught I know to the contrary, you, and you alone, may be the murderer of Percy Osmond.”
Janvard shuddered slightly. “I am not the murderer of Percy Osmond,” he said quietly.
“Who, then, was the murderer?”
“My late master—Mr. Kester St. George.”