The man’s face, in an instant, went pale as death.
“I—I don’t know what you mean, sir!” he answered, with a vain effort to add indignation to his words.
“Well, perhaps you will when I’m called as witness against you and your three companions Bennett, Purvis, and Harding,” he answered meaningly. “Where are they now?”
“In London,” was the fellow’s unwilling response.
Suddenly a brilliant idea occurred to me, and in a loud, threatening voice I said —
“Now, look here, Mr. Franklin. We may as well speak plainly to you, as this is no time for beating about the bush. We know sufficient about you and your scoundrelly companions to give you into the custody of the first policeman we meet. Understand that.”
The fellow was a coward, we could see. Mention of the tragedy at Kilburn had sapped his courage utterly, and he now stood before us white, terror-stricken, glancing wildly around for means of escape. We were, however, three to one, and he saw how he had fallen as into a trap.
“I fired the shot in order to alarm you,” he faltered, addressing me. “I had no intention of harming you.”
“But you will recollect who took Miss Dorothy Drummond to that house at Kilburn, and who forced her to touch the dead man’s face,” Reilly interposed.
He made no response, for he saw that the secret of the murder was out.