Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp.
‘Good-evening,’ he said, nodding. ‘Barter’s here, I suppose.’
‘Sir,’ said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour dawning in his mind, ‘Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be very happy to see you.’
Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed the door, and followed close upon his heels. Barter, with his pale complexion fallen to the tint of dead ashes, sat huddled in the arm-chair, staring white-eyed like a frightened madman. Steinberg stared back at him in sheer amazement at his looks, and Phil, closing the door, turned the key in the lock and pocketed it.
‘Hillo!’ cried Steinberg, turning swiftly round at the click, ‘what’s this mean?’ He measured Philip with his eye—a very evil and wicked eye it was—and dropped back a step or two.
‘What’s this mean?’ Steinberg asked again, his quick glance darting from one to the other.
‘It means, sir,’ said Phil, with a glad tranquillity, ‘that your fellow-scoundrel, the courageous gentleman in the arm-chair there, is in the act of making his confession.’
Steinberg sent one savage glance at Barter, and then dashed at him, and planting both hands within the collar of his shirt, so banged him to and fro that he would inevitably have done him a mischief of a serious sort but for Phil’s intervention. The method of intervention was less tranquil than Philip’s motion up to this time had been. He tore Steinberg from his grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to measure, and hurled him across the room. He staggered at the door, and his head coming noisily in contact with it, he slipped down into a sitting posture with an expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a complete vacuity and indifference.
Now Mr. Barter, scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had begun to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg’s chance in the enemy’s hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the last necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He got up from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to the helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped his hands.
‘Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, tie him!’ gurgled Barter. ‘He’s been the ruin of me, curse him. I should have been an honest man if it hadn’t been for him. It’s him that led me into it, and he’s had every sixpence of the money. I’ve been his tool, his miserable tool. Tie him, Mr. Bommaney, before he comes round again. I’ll hold him for you.’