“Unfortunately, I shall be,” was his reply, and I saw that his countenance fell; “I foresee it. That is why I require your aid—the aid of a man who is honest, and who is a gentleman as well.”
And he broke off again to chatter to Joseph, who was keeping up a continual screeching.
“I am anxious to hear details of the affair,” I said eagerly.
“I wish I could tell you the details,” he answered, with a bitter smile; “but I am not aware of them myself. The affair is a mystery—one of which even the police must be kept in ignorance.”
“Haven’t the police been informed?”
“No,” was his prompt reply. “In certain cases information to the police means publicity. In this case, as I’ve already told you, there must be no publicity. Therefore, though a crime has been committed, it is being kept from the police, who, not knowing the facts, must only bungle the inquiries, and whose limited scope of inquiry would only result in failure.”
“You interest me, Mr Kirk. Relate the known facts to me,” I said. “Why, pray, will you be suspected of being a murderer?”
“Well,” he said, with a long-drawn sigh, “because—well, because I had everything to gain by the death of the murdered person. He had filched from me a very valuable secret.”
“Then the murdered person was not your friend?”
“No; my enemy,” he replied. “You, Mr Holford, as an Englishman, will no doubt think it impossible that I may be arrested, tried in secret, and sent to penal servitude for life for a crime of which I am innocent. You believe that every man in this isle of unrest of ours must have a fair trial by judge and jury. Yet I tell you that there are exceptions. There are certain men in England who would never be brought before a criminal court. I am one of them.”