Adam Heriet looked up sharply and alertly when the door of his prison was opened at an unexpected hour of the early evening. He drew himself together with composure and caution when he saw who entered. He was practised and prepared in all the questions with which he had so far had to contend, but this promised or threatened something new. The bold oaken face the jeweller’s wife had so shrewdly observed served him well. He rose civilly in the presence of his betters, but with a formal stiffness and a blank countenance which suggested that he did not feel himself to be in any way inferior. The door closed behind them, though the key was not turned. There was no need, there would be a guard outside.
“Sit, Adam! We have been showing some interest in your movements in Winchester, at the time you know of,” said Hugh mildly. “Would you care to add anything to what you’ve already told us? Or to change anything?”
“No, my lord. I have told you what I did and where I went. There is no more to tell.”
“Your memory may be faulty. All men are fallible. Can we not remind you, for instance, of a silversmith’s shop in the High Street? Where you sold three small things of value-not your property?”
Adam’s face remained stonily stoical, but his eyes flickered briefly from one face to the other. “I never sold anything in Winchester. If anyone says so, they have mistaken me for some other man.”
“You lie!” said Nicholas, flaring. “Who else would be carrying these very three things? A necklace of polished stones, an engraved silver bracelet-and this!”
The ring lay in his open palm, thrust close under Adam’s nose, its enamels shining with a delicate lustre, a small work of art so singular that there could not be a second like it. And he had known the girl from infancy, and must have been familiar with her trinkets long before that journey south. If he denied this, he proclaimed himself a liar, for there were plenty of others who could swear to it.
He did not deny it. He even stared at it with a well-assumed wonder and surprise, and said at once: “That is Julian’s! Where did you get it?”
“From the silversmith’s wife. She kept it for her own, and she remembered very well the man who brought it, and painted as good a picture of him as the law will need to put your name to him. Yes, this is Julian’s!” said Nicholas, hoarse with passion. “That is what you did with her goods. What did you do with her?”
“I’ve told you! I parted from her a mile or more from Wherwell, at her orders, and I never saw her again.”
“You lie in your teeth! You destroyed her.”
Hugh laid a hand on the young man’s arm, which started and quivered at the touch, like a pointing hound distracted from his aim.
“Adam, you waste your lying, which is worse. Here is a ring you acknowledge for your mistress’s property, sold, according to two good witnesses, on the twentieth of August three years ago, in a Winchester shop, by a man whose description fits you better than your own clothes…”
“Then it could fit many a man of my age,” protested Adam stoutly. “What is there singular about me? The woman has not pointed the finger at me, she has not seen me…”
“She will, Adam, she will. We can bring her, and her husband, too, to accuse you to your face. As I accuse you,” said Hugh firmly. “This is too much to be passed off as a children’s tale, or a curious chance. We need no better case against you than this ring and those two witnesses provide-for robbery, if not for murder. Yes, murder! How else did you get possession of her jewellery? And if you did not connive at her death, then where is she now? She never reached Wherwell, nor was she expected there, it was quite safe to put her out of the world, her kin here believing her safe in a nunnery, the nunnery undisturbed by her never arriving, for she had given no forewarning. So where is she, Adam? On the earth or under it?”
“I know no more than I’ve told you,” said Adam, setting his teeth.
“Ah, but you do! You know how much you got from the silversmith-and how much of it you paid over to your hired assassin, outside the shop. Who was he, Adam?” demanded Hugh softly. “The woman saw you meet him, pay him, slither away round the corner with him when you saw her standing at the door. Who was he?”
“I know nothing of any such man. It was not I who went there, I tell you.” His voice was still firm, but a shade hurried now, and had risen a tone, and he was beginning to sweat.
“The woman has described him, too. A young fellow about twenty, slender, and kept his capuchon over his head. Give him a name, Adam, and it may somewhat lighten your load. If you know a name for him? Where did you find him? In the market? Or was he bespoken well before for the work?”
“I never entered such a shop. If all this happened, it happened to other men, not to me. I was not there.”
“But Julian’s possessions were, Adam! That’s certain. And brought by someone who much resembled you. When the woman sees you in the flesh, then I may say, brought by you. Better to tell us, Adam. Spare yourself a long uncovering, make your confession of your own will, and be done. Spare the silversmith’s wife a long journey. For she will point the finger, Adam. This, she will say when she sets eyes on you, this is the man.”
“I have nothing to confess. I’ve done no wrong.”
“Why did you choose that particular shop, Adam?”
“I was never in the shop. I had nothing to sell. I was not there…”
“But this ring was, Adam. How did it get there? And with neckless and bracelet, too? Chance? How far can chance stretch?”
“I left her a mile from Wherwell…”
“Dead, Adam?”
“I parted from her living, I swear it!”
“Yet you told the silversmith that the lady who had owned these gems was dead. Why did you so?”
“I told you, it was not I, I was never in the shop.”
“Some other man, was it? A stranger, and yet he had those ornaments, all three, and he resembled you, and he knew and said that the lady was dead. Here are so many miraculous chances, Adam, how do you account for them?”
