“The man who wrote it ought to know,” growled Doddridge Knapp, with his eyes flashing and the yellow-gray mustache standing out like bristles. The fangs of the Wolf were in sight.
“Well, you'll have to look somewhere else for him,” I said firmly. “I never saw the note, and never bought a share of Crown Diamond.”
Doddridge Knapp bent forward, and looked for an instant as though he would leap upon me. His eye was the eye of a wild beast in anger. If I had written that note I should have gone through the window without stopping for explanations. As I had not written it I sat there coolly and looked him in the face with an easy conscience.
“Well, well,” he said at last, relaxing his gaze, “I almost believe you.”
“There's no use going any further, Mr. Knapp, unless you believe me altogether.”
“I see you understand what I was going to say,” he said quietly. “But if you didn't send that, who did?”
“Well, if I were to make a guess, I should say it was the man who wrote this.”
I tossed him in turn the note I had received in the afternoon, bidding me sell everything.
The King of the Street looked at it carefully, and his brows drew lower and lower as its import dawned on him. The look of angry perplexity deepened on his face.
“Where did you get this?”