“Oh don’t make any mistake; I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re thinking about. You see, I’ve been knocking around a goodish few years, and now I’ve a fancy for settling down—settling down in my own place, you understand.”
There was a smug smile of triumph on the parson’s face now. His cousin was merely “bouncing” to extort terms. It would come to that in a few minutes. But the look aroused a very demon in the other. His eyes burned like live coals, though when he spoke his voice was under perfect control.
“Again, I say, you needn’t be afraid,” he said. “Everything shall be done in due course of law.”
“But—but, my good fellow, surely you are aware you haven’t a leg to stand on?”
“I reckon I’m the best judge of that. See here, most reverend Dudley. Do you remember our last interview, here, in this very room? Safe in the triumph of your successful fraud—fraud, I say, if you prefer it, forgery—you jeered at me, jeered at the man you had robbed. Remember?”
“‘Fraud!’ ‘Robbed!’” sputtered the parson, trying to lash himself into anger to drown the sinking sense that had come over him. “Do you know, sir, that you are using actionable words?”
“Ah, ah! History repeats itself. That is precisely as you spoke on the former occasion, friend Dudley. I will say it again, call in witnesses if you like. Having defrauded and robbed me of my patrimony by lies and intriguing, and worse—you, a preacher of the Gospel, a teacher of Christian morality—you threatened me with the law. You made your lawyers write to threaten me with an action for libel if I dared so much as venture an opinion on your behaviour. Do you remember my words to you as I left this room?”
Well, indeed, did he remember. And now at the sight of the deadly wrath on this man’s features, all the more terrible because so completely held in hand—of the towering form with its back just half a yard from the door, precluding alike entrance or exit—again Mr Vallance could not restrain a shiver of physical fear.
“I told you my time would surely come, didn’t I? How many years ago was it? Nearer twenty than ten—yes. You slandered my name and stole my possessions—you, a sacred dispenser of sacraments—and I went forth a beggar, followed by your jeers of triumph. If you go where I have been during those years, and take the trouble to enquire, you will learn that few persons have played me a scrofulous trick without bitterly rueing it. You have played me the most scrofulous trick of all, and you are going to rue it.”
“Well, I must trouble you to let me pass, please. I shall ask you to excuse me wasting my time any longer,” said Mr Vallance, making a move as if to leave the room. But the other only smiled.