“That’s for you to answer. Perhaps I can help you. But it must be done. Starbright is on his team?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought. They must play the New London polo-team in New London. And while they are over there I will work my plans to get Charles Conrad Merriwell again in my power. But Frank must be out of New Haven. Must be lured out, I say. I can’t cope with him, and I must have a clear track here if I am to win. I know I can win if he can be led away. I don’t care how you do it, so it is done. Perhaps I can help you.”
He sunk his head deeper between his shoulders, and his eyes blazed as brightly as the fire.
“And Starbright?” Dade anxiously and tremulously asked, for he was, at the moment, more interested in the overthrow of Starbright than of Merriwell.
“A polo-game is a rough game, and a polo-stick may be a dangerous weapon in the hands of the right man. If there is not a man on the New London team who will do the work for you, scheme some way to get a man on that team who will. I have heard of men having their arms broken in such games. I see no reason why a man mightn’t be killed in such a game!”
He spoke as coldly as if his eyes were not flames of fire and his heart a seething volcano. Dade flushed and paled, while his breath came panting hot from between his lips.
“I’ll do it!” he said, gasping out the promise. “I’ll do it, somehow. I’ll need money to work the trick, maybe, and a lot of it. Money can do anything, if a fellow only has enough of it.”
Santenel turned on him those awful eyes. The pupils had shrunk to a pin-point in size and Dade shivered, for they seemed to shoot out at him points of fire.
“You’re a devil!” he half-gurgled to himself, but the words caught the keen ears of Santenel.