Wiles turned his wicked eye on him. “Manuel and Miguel, who sold out to our man, are afraid of her. They were our witnesses. I verily believe they'd take back everything if she got after them. And as for Pedro, he thinks she holds the power of life and death over him.”
“Pedro! life and death,—what's all this?” said the astonished Gashwiler.
Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop. “Pedro,” he said, “was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one of the original locators.”
Mr. Gashwiler turned white as a sheet, and then flushed again into an apoplectic glow. “Do you dare to say,” he began as soon as he could find his tongue and his legs, for in the exercise of his congressional functions these extreme members supported each other,—“do you mean to say,” he stammered in rising rage, “that you have dared to deceive an American lawgiver into legislating upon a measure connected with a capital offense? Do I understand you to say, sir, that murder stands upon the record—stands upon the record, sir,—of this cause to which, as a representative of Remus, I have lent my official aid? Do you mean to say that you have deceived my constituency, whose sacred trust I hold, in inveigling me to hiding a crime from the Argus eyes of justice?” And Mr. Gashwiler looked towards the bell-pull as if about to summon a servant to witness this outrage against the established judiciary.
“The murder, if it WAS a murder, took place before Garcia entered upon this claim, or had a footing in this court,” returned Wiles blandly, “and is no part of the record.”
“You are sure it is not spread upon the record?”
“I am. You can judge for yourself.”
Mr. Gashwiler walked to the window, returned to the table, finished his liquor in a single gulp, and then, with a slight resumption of dignity, said:
“That alters the case.”
Wiles glanced with his left eye at the Congressman. The right placidly looked out of the window. Presently he said quietly, “I've brought you the certificates of stock; do you wish them made out in your own name?”