Mr. Benjamin looked ingenuously perplexed.
"I can't say that I follow you, Miss Thurwell," he said, shaking his head. "All I know is that I can prove this Mr. Bernard Brown, or Bernard Maddison, or whatever else he chooses to call himself, guilty of that murder. That's what we want, isn't it?"
A cold chill passed over her, and she was compelled to sink into the chair which stood by her side. Like a flash she suddenly realized the impossibility of convincing such men as these of his innocence. Yet, even then, the worst side of the situation did not occur to her.
"Perhaps we had better put it in this way, Mr. Levy," she said. "I gave you certain instructions to follow out, which I now rescind. I wish nothing further done in the matter."
Mr. Benjamin's face was a study. He had contrived to conjure up an expression which combined the blankest surprise with the keenest disappointment. Helen began to feel still more uncomfortable.
"Under the circumstances," she said, "and as you seem rather disappointed, I will pay you the reward just as though the thing had gone on."
Mr. Benjamin shook his head slowly.
"Do you know, Miss Thurwell, that you are proposing a conspiracy to me?"
"A conspiracy!" she repeated. "I don't understand."
"It's very simple," he went on gravely. "I have in my possession, or shortly shall have, every particular of this Mr. Maddison's life. I can show the connection between him and Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, and, in short, I can prove him guilty of murder. What you ask me to do is to suppress this. That is the moral side of the question. Then, with regard to the practical side, if this thing is gone on with, we shall get the reward you promised and, what is far more important to us, a reputation which we have looked forward to as a certain foundation for a great extension of our business. If, on the other hand, we drop it, we get simply the reward, which, pardon my saying so, would be a miserable return for all our labor. That is how the matter stands from our point of view. I think I've expressed it fairly, father?"