“With much pleasure, sir,” Da Souza answered, throwing open with a little flourish the door of his sanctum. “Will you step in? This way! The chair is dusty. Permit me!”
Trent threw a swift glance around the room in which he found himself. It was barely furnished, and a window, thick with dust, looked out on the dingy back-wall of a bank or some public building. The floor was uncovered, the walls were hung with yellow maps of gold-mines all in the West African district. Da Souza himself, spick and span, with glossy boots and a flower in his buttonhole, was certainly the least shabby thing in the room.
“You know very well,” Trent said, “what I have come about. Of course you'll pretend you don't, so to save time I'll tell you. What have you done with Monty?”
Da Souza spread outwards the palms of his hands. He spoke with well-affected impatience.
“Monty! always Monty! What do I want with him? It is you who should look after him, not I.”
Trent turned quietly round and locked the door. Da Souza would have called out, but a paroxysm of fear had seized him. His fat, white face was pallid, and his knees were shaking. Trent's hand fell upon his shoulder, and Da Souza felt as though the claws of a trap had gripped him.
“If you call out I'll throttle you,” Trent said. “Now listen. Francis is in England and, unless Monty is produced, will tell the whole story. I shall do the best I can for all of us, but I'm not going to have Monty done to death. Come, let's have the truth.”
Da Souza was grey now with a fear greater even than a physical one. He had been so near wealth. Was he to lose everything?
“Mr. Trent,” he whispered, “my dear friend, have reason. Monty, I tell you, is only half alive, he hangs on, but it is a mere thread of life. Leave it all to me! To-morrow he shall be dead!—oh, quite naturally. There shall be no risk! Trent, Trent!”
His cry ended in a gurgle, for Trent's hand was on his throat.