“Alas! monsieur, my memory needs no refreshing. The incidents of that night are far too terrible to be forgotten.” With a hand that still shook slightly he poured himself out another glass of wine and drank it off at a draught. Then he continued: “On the night of the quarrel in the billiard-room at Park Newton I was sitting up for my master, Mr. St. George. About midnight the bell rang for me, and on answering it, my master put Mr. Osmond into my hands, he being somewhat the worse for wine, with instructions to see him safely to bed. This I did, and then left him. As it happened, I had taken a violent fancy to Mr. Osmond’s splendid ruby ring—the very ring monsieur has now in his possession—and that night I determined to make it my own. There were several new servants in the house, and nobody would suspect me of having taken it. Mr. Osmond had drawn it off his finger, and thrown it carelessly into his dressing-bag which he locked before getting into bed, afterwards putting his keys under his pillow.
“When the house was quiet, I put on a pair of list slippers and made my way to Mr. Osmond’s bedroom. The door was unlocked and I went in. A night-lamp was burning on the dressing-table. The full moon shone in through the uncurtained window, and its rays slanted right across the sleeper’s face. He lay there, sleeping the sleep of the drunken, with one hand clenched, and a frown on his face as if he were still threatening Mr. Dering. It was hardly the work of a minute to possess myself of the keys. In another minute the dressing-case was opened and the ring my own. Mr. Osmond’s portmanteau stood invitingly open: what more natural than that I should desire to turn over its contents lightly and delicately? In such cases I am possessed by the simple curiosity of a child. I was down on my knees before the portmanteau, admiring this, that, and the other, when, to my horror, I heard the noise of coming footsteps. No concealment was possible, save that afforded by the long curtains which shaded one of the windows. Next moment I was safely hidden behind them.
“The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and then some one entered the room. The sleeping man still breathed heavily. Now and then he moaned in his sleep. All my fear of being found out could not keep me from peeping out of my hiding-place. What I saw was my master, Mr. Kester St. George, standing over the sleeping man, with a look on his face that I had never seen there before. He stood thus for a full minute, and then he came round to the near side of the bed, and seemed to be looking for Mr. Osmond’s keys. In a little while he saw them in the dressing-bag where I had left them. Then he crossed to the other side of the room and proceeded to try them one by one, till he had found the right one, in the lock of Mr. Osmond’s writing-case. He opened the case, took out of it Mr. Osmond’s cheque book, and from that he tore either one or two blank cheques. He had just relocked the writing-case when Mr. Osmond suddenly awoke and started up in bed. ‘Villain! what are you doing there?’ he cried, as he flung back the bedclothes. But before he could set foot to the floor, Mr. St. George sprang at his throat, and pinned him down almost as easily as if he had been a boy. What happened during the next minute I hardly know how to describe. It would seem that Mr. Osmond was in the habit of sleeping with a dagger under his pillow. At all events, there was one there on this particular night. As soon as he found himself pinned down in bed, his hand sought for and found this dagger, and next moment he made a sudden stab with it at the breast of Mr. St. George. But my master was too quick for him. There was an instant’s struggle—a flash—a cry—and—you may guess the rest.
“A murmur of horror escaped my lips. In another instant my master had sprung across the room and had torn away the curtains from before me. ‘You here!’ he said. And for a few seconds I thought my fate would be the same as that of Mr. Osmond. But at last his hand dropped. ‘Janvard, you and I must be friends,’ he said. ‘From this night your interests are mine, and my interests are yours.’ Then we left the room together. A terrible night, monsieur, as you may well believe.”
“You have accounted clearly enough for the murder, but you have not yet told us how it happened that Lionel Dering came to be accused of the crime.”
“That is the worst part of the story, sir. Whose thought it was first, whether Mr. St. George’s or mine, to lay the murder at the door of Mr. Dering, I could not now tell you. It was a thought that seemed to come into the heads of both of us at the same moment. As monsieur knows, my master had no cause to love his cousin. He had every reason to hate him. Mr. Dering had got all the estates and property that ought to have been Mr. St. George’s. But if Mr. Dering were to die without children, the estate would all come back to his cousin. Reason enough for wishing Mr. Dering dead.
“We did not talk much about it, my master and I. We understood one another without many words. There were certain things to be done which Mr. St. George had not the nerve to do. I had the nerve to do them, and I did them. It was I who put Mr. Dering’s stud under the bed. It was I who took his handkerchief, and——”
“Enough!” said Lionel, with a shudder. “Surely no more devilish plot was ever hatched by Satan himself! You—you who sit so calmly there, had but to hold up your finger to save an innocent man from disgrace and death!”
“What would monsieur have?” said Janvard, with another of his indescribable shrugs. “Mr. St. George was my master. I liked him, and I was, besides, to have a large sum of money given me to keep silence. Mr. Dering was a stranger to me. Voilà tout.”
“Janvard, you are one of the vilest wretches that ever disgraced the name of man!”