"Hmf, yes. You found Depping posing as a respectable country gentleman. It struck you as a heaven-sent opportunity to exercise those peculiar talents of yours — eh?"
"I deny that."
"You would, naturally. Let us say that you wanted to present your compliments to Depping and arrange a meeting to chat about old times. But the terms of the meeting, as suggested by Depping, roused suspicions in your none-too-trusting nature. He didn't ask you to his house, for this chat. A meeting in a lonely neighborhood, beside the river half a mile from the inn where you were stopping; and so far away from where Depping lived that, if your body were found floating in the river some miles still further down, he would scarcely be connected—"
Dr. Fell paused. He flipped up his hand as though he were tossing something away.
"You know a hell of a lot, don't you?" the other asked quietly. "Suppose I admitted it? You couldn't prove any blackmail charge. We arranged a friendly litde conversation; that was all."
"Agreed… Well, how did you manage it?"
The other seemed to come to a decision. He shrugged his thin shoulders. "O.K. I'll risk it. — Bulletproof vest. I trusted old Nick Depping about as far as I can throw that desk. Even so, he nearly got me. I was standing on the river bank — that litde creek they call a river — at the foot of a meadow where there's a clump of trees. We'd arranged to meet there. It was moonlight, but clouding up already. I didn't know he was going to start anything. I thought maybe he'd come to terms, like any sensible man who was caught with the goods…" He thrust out his neck and wriggled his head from side to side; his collar seemed to be too tight. They could see his teeth now.
"And then I heard a noise behind a tree. I whirled around, and there was somebody steadying a rod against the side of a tree, and taking a flat bead on me so close he couldn't miss. It didn't look like Nick — this guy with the rod, I mean. He looked young, and had a moustache, from what I could see in the moonlight. But I heard Nick's voice, all right. He said, 'You'll never do it again.' And then he let me have it, and I saw one of Nick's gold teeth.
"I didn't think of falling in the river. The slug knocked me in; square in the chest — through the heart if I hadn't been wearing that vest. But once I was in the water I got my senses back. It's deep, and there's hell's own current. I went downstream underwater as far as I could, and came up round a bend. He thought he'd got me."
"What then?"