"
"M. Rupert Gascoigne is your informant, I presume," said Ledantec
sneering; "it is easy to rebut a charge by throwing it on another. But
you are too clever, M. le Juge, to be imposed upon."
"You at least cannot hoodwink me. We have the fullest evidence, let me
tell you, of the crime--all the crimes--laid to your charge. Your
accomplice has confessed."
This was said to try the prisoner, and it succeeded, for he started
slightly at the word "crimes."
"Accomplice! Of whom do you speak?"
"There is a woman in custody who has been associated with you for
years. It was she who instigated you to the robbery and murder of the
Baron d'Enot. She joined you when you fled from the gambling-den in
Tinplate Street, and shared your flight from Paris. She was with you
in St. Petersburg till you separated after a violent quarrel--"
"The blame was hers," interrupted Ledantec.
"Possibly, but you were equally to blame. In any case she left you to
shift for herself. She entered a great English family by a false
marriage, and, when next you met her, conspired with her to bring the
wealth of that family within her grasp. You again became her guilty
partner, and plotted to take the life of the heir to a noble English
title and great estates."
He was referring now to McKay, but Ledantec, misled by a guilty
conscience, was thinking of Lord Lydstone, and his mysteriously sudden
death.
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