“So that’s how great fortunes are made? That’s how individuals—to say nothing of nations—rise to wealth and power! And I never knew it,” Beaumaroy reflected in a gentle voice. His eye caught Mary’s, and she gave a little laugh. “By deciding doubtful cases against themselves! Dear me, yes!”
“I didn’t say they rose to greatness and power.”
“Then the people who do rise to greatness and power—and the nations—don’t they go by right of conquest, Doctor Mary? Don’t they decide cases in their own favor?”
“Did you really mean to—to take the money?”
“I’ll tell you as near as I can. I meant to do my best for my old man. I meant him to live as long as he could, and to live free, unpersecuted, as happy as he could be made. I meant that, because I loved him, and he loved me. Well, I’ve lost him; I’m alone in the world.” The last words were no appeal to Mary; for the moment he seemed to have forgotten her; he was speaking out of his own heart to himself. Yet the words thereby touched her to a livelier pity; you are very lonely when there is nobody to whom you have affection’s right to complain of loneliness.
“But after that, if I saw him to his end in peace, if I brought that off, well, then I rather think that I should have stuck to the money. Yes, I rather think so.”
“You’ve managed to mix things up so!” Mary complained. “Your devotion to Mr. Saffron—for that I could forgive you keeping his secret, and fooling me, and all of us. But then you mix that up with the money!”
“It was mixed up with it. I didn’t do the mixing.”
“What are you going to do now?” she asked with a sudden curiosity.
“Oh, now? Now the thing’s all different. You’ve seen, you know, and even I can’t offer you a partnership in the cash, can I? If I weren’t an infernally poor conspirator, I should have covered up the Captain’s grave, and made everything neat and tidy before I came to fetch you, because I knew he might go back to the Tower. On his bad nights he always made me open the grave, and spread out the money, make a show of it, you know. Then it had to be put back in bags—the money bags lived in the brown leather bag—and the grave had to be fastened down. Altogether it was a good bit of work. I’d just got it open, and the money spread out, when he turned bad—a sort of collapse like the one you saw; and I was so busy getting him to bed that I forgot the cursed grave and the money—just as I forgot to put away the knife-and-fork before you called the first time, and you saw through me!”