"Mr. McManus," said Trafford solemnly; "I'm at work to find the murderer of Mr. Wing. That's the one purpose I have before me, and it is what the best interests of the public demand. If Oldbeg or another suffers unjustly for the moment, it is that the guilty man may suffer in the end. I'm sorry for Oldbeg, but I'm not responsible for the turn matters have taken. At present, the parties who are interested in these papers believe I have them, and the work I'm doing requires them to continue so to believe. I don't conceive it to be my duty to produce at the inquest testimony that will undeceive them."
"Aren't you taking a tremendous responsibility?" McManus asked.
"It's my business to take responsibility. I've taken it often to the extent of risking my life—I may do so again; but when there's a murderer at large and I'm set to find him, I don't stop because my life is endangered or because another is put to inconvenience. If Oldbeg's held for the murder, it'll be inconvenient for him, but not so inconvenient as it would be for me to be murdered because I'm on the track of the right man."
