“Do you absolutely refuse to grant her liberty?”
“Most decidedly I do.”
“Then listen!” I said determinedly. “Listen, while I bring back to your recollection certain curious facts that, although concealed, are nevertheless not forgotten. You jeer at my discomforture; you would send a pure, innocent woman to the guillotine, because you fear the consequence of her escape might be your removal from office. Very well. Believe me, you will soon enough be recalled, and sink to a fitting end of ignominy and shame.”
“Dieu! Your mouth is full of insults.”
“Be silent until I have finished; then give me your decision,” I continued resolutely. “Not long ago there lived in London a nobleman who had a young and beautiful daughter. She had the misfortune to be an heiress. An aged ex-Minister, a Frenchman, met her, and coveted her gold. He proposed, and was accepted by the nobleman, but there were two barriers to their marriage: firstly, a lover to whom the heiress had already given her heart; and secondly, a cousin who had lived in Paris a long time, and, knowing its seamy side, knew also Mariette Lestrade, a whilom luminary of the Moulin Rouge, who resided in a pretty bijou villa on the edge of the Bois, under the protection of the ex-Minister. The latter, however, was not a man to be easily turned from his purpose, for, strangely enough, the heiress’s cousin was found murdered in his chambers in St. James’s Street, and—and the alleged murderer—”
“The murderer escaped!” he declared involuntarily, for he had grown pale, and was glaring at me with transfixed, wide-open eyes.
“Yes, quite true, he did escape. He escaped to marry and secure the fortune of the heiress, and—to become Governor-General of Algeria!”
“What—what do you allege?” he gasped, jumping to his feet, his face livid. “Do you impute that I—I committed the murder?”
For a moment I regarded him steadily. Under my gaze he flinched, and his hands trembled as if palsied.
“I impute nothing,” I answered quietly. “I have already in my possession absolute proof of the identity of the murderer.”