"Oh, it's all in the letter," cried Mina in a quick burst of impatience. "There it is."
She flung it across to Iver and rested her chin on her hands, while her eyes followed his expression as he read. Duplay was all excitement, but old Mr Neeld had sunk back in his chair with a look of fretful weariness. Iver was deliberate; his glasses needed some fitting on; the sheet of paper required some smoothing after its contact with Mina's disordered and disordering hair. Besides, he was really as excited as Duplay and almost as agitated as Mina herself. But these emotions are not appropriate to business men. So he was very calm and deliberate in his demeanor; he might have been going to deliver a whole speech from the way he cleared his throat.
"I have thrown up the sponge and fled. Please make friends with Lady Tristram of Blent.—H. T."
It was enough. What need of further witness? And if there had been, the principal criminal had confessed and the lips of his accomplices were unsealed.
For a while nobody spoke. Then Neeld, leaning forward to the table again, began to explain and excuse his silence, to speak of the hard case he was in, of the accidental and confidential character of his knowledge. Neither Mina nor her uncle even appeared to heed him. Iver seemed to listen patiently and courteously, but his mind too was distracted, and he did not cease fidgeting with Harry Tristram's letter and referring ever and again to its brief sufficient message.
"I dare say I was wrong. The position was very difficult," pleaded Neeld.
"Yes, yes," said Iver in an absent tone. "Difficult no doubt, Neeld; both for you and Mina. And now he has—he has given up the game himself! Or was his hand forced?"
"No," flashed out Mina, restored in a moment to
animation, her fighting instincts awake again. "He'd never have been forced. He must have done it of his own accord."