"You did."
"I have no recollection of it. You have my letter. Produce it. The written words are--I can recall them--'Rest content. Your desire is compassed; you will be troubled no more.' Pay a little attention now to me, shrewd sir. You have spoken to me in unmannerly fashion; you have threatened me with the law. I despise your threats; I despise you. Profit by a lesson it will be well for you to learn in this humble room. Never make an enemy of a man, not even of the meanest man. You never know when he may help to strike you down. When I worked for you as a copyist you formed an estimate of my character upon grounds shaped by yourself for your own private purposes--purposes into which, up to the present moment, I have made no active inquiry, though I have pondered upon them. I do not engage myself to be in the future so practically incurious and retiring."
"Bully away," said Mr. Fox-Cordery, inwardly boiling over with rage. "I have nothing to fear from you."
"You said to yourself, 'Here is a man of foreign origin who will do anything for money,' and this opinion emboldened you to proceed with a scheme which needed an unscrupulous agent, such as you supposed me to be, to insure success. Unsolicited you introduced your scheme to me, not in plain words, for which you could be made directly accountable, but in veiled allusions and metaphors which needed intellectual power to comprehend. Intellect is required for the success of base as well as of worthy ends. Your mock compassion amazed me, and I made a mental study of you, as of something new--a confession which perhaps will surprise you. Not I the dupe, shrewd sir, but you. Men of my nation have a habit of expressing themselves in metaphor, and are taught to grasp a meaning, not from what is said, but from what is not said; and I, though I have never been in my parents' native land, acquired this habit from them. I divined your wish, but saw not, and see not now, the springs which prompted it. Plainly, it was a crime you proposed to me, and left the means at my discretion; and after making the acquaintance of the gentleman whose end you hired me to compass, I accepted the commission, nothing being farther from my mind than to assist in its accomplishment. Not I, but fortune, favored you. You were troubled by a mortal's existence; you were released from your trouble, and your end was attained. Thus much I tell you, and will tell you no more. Be content, and go."
"Come now," said Mr. Fox-Cordery, drawing a long breath of relief, "you have talked a lot of infernal bosh, and told any number of lies; but I will excuse you for everything if you will inform me where it took place."
"Not one word will I add to those I have already spoken."
"Hang it! I have a right to know. You could be forced to tell!"
"Make the attempt. For the second time, I bid you go."
He threw open the door, and stood aside to give his visitor unobstructed passage. Recognizing the uselessness of remaining any longer, Mr. Fox-Cordery laughed insolently in Rathbeal's face, and, feeling his way down the dark stairs, reached the lower landing in safety, and passed into the street.
Although he was not in the most amiable of humors, his mind was greatly relieved. Robert Grantham was dead. Of that he had been assured by Rathbeal; not, certainly, in such plain words as he would have preferred to hear, but in terms that left no doubt in his mind.