The doctor took a cigarette, lit it, and waited. He had smoked it half down before Geoffrey spoke again.
"You see my position," he said at length. "There is no harm that I can see in my telling you that I know how intimate you are with Mr. Francis. I am wondering whether possibly I may be aiding him and you by seeing you; that is the truth. For your intimacy with Mr. Francis was very close as long as three-and-twenty years ago—at the time, let us say, of the violent death of Harold Harmsworth. That is so, I believe."
"Certainly," said the doctor. "I received, I may tell you, two thousand pounds for the service I did Mr. Francis at the coroner's inquest."
Geoffrey looked up quickly.
"Ah! that sounds genuine," he said.
"About that you must decide for yourself," said the doctor.
Geoffrey snapped down the lid of the cigarette box, took out of his coat pocket the revolver he had put there, and laid it on the table close to the doctor's hand.
"I have decided, you see, to trust you," he said. "Perhaps my parting with that revolver is an unconvincing proof, for it would certainly be incautious of you to shoot me here and now, but I can think of nothing better. There it is, anyhow."
Dr. Armytage took up the revolver and opened it.
"Six chambers, all loaded, I perceive," he said. "Let me return it you as I received it. I have no use for it."