His face fell a little sombre.
“Sure you’re in a fit state to hear?”
“O, I’m all right, I tell you. It would worry me not to know.”
“Very well. Then, when we’d got rid of you at last, and had something to eat and drink, we held a council of war. Mr. Paxton was in a rare state. I think he’d have liked to shoot that beast at sight. I’d never thought he could be like that, and I tell you it made me crow to see him. But your friend Joshua was for a postponement, until he could visit the crypts. He went through his whole story again, just as he’d said it to us. We told your uncle everything, of course, from first to last; and Sant, naturally. And then he came down. He would hear of no course but the direct one. He’d go straight up to the Court for a warrant against Rampick for attempted murder; and, after that, to wring out and air the whole dirty business. He didn’t mind about risking his own popularity; he didn’t value at a brass piece the insane flummery of the treasure, as he called it. He and Mr. Pilbrow near came to words about it; and then——”
“What then?” I asked him, for he had stopped.
“I hardly like to tell you,” he said. “Sure you’re all right?”
“O yes, of course!” I said impatiently. “Do go on!”
“Well, we’d all gone out on the step, to see Mr. Pilbrow off, and he and Sant were standing wrangling there, when who should come slouching past but Rampick himself.
“I tell you he gave a screech, and dropped in a heap where he stood. We all ran out, thinking him dead. I don’t know now whether he is or not.”
“It would be the best way out of it all, perhaps,” I muttered.