“The envelope,” he stammered angrily, “what do you know—what envelope?”
Jimmy’s hand waved him to his seat.
“Let us have no emotions, no flights, no outraged honor, I beg of you, dear Mr. Spedding. I do not suggest that you have any sinister reasons for withholding information concerning what my friend Angel would call the ‘surprise packet.’ In good time I do not doubt you would have disclosed its existence.”
“I know of no red envelope,” said the lawyer doggedly.
“I rather fancied you would say that,” said Jimmy, with a touch of admiration in his tone. “You are not the sort of fox to curl up and howl at the first bay of the hound—if you will permit the simile—indeed, you would have disappointed me if you had.”
The lawyer paced the room.
“Look here,” he said, coming to a halt before the semi-recumbent form that lay behind a haze of cigarette smoke in the arm-chair, “you’ve spent a great deal of your time telling me what I am, describing my many doubtful qualities, and hinting more or less broadly that I am a fairly representative scoundrel. May I ask what is your ultimate object? Is it blackmail?” he demanded harshly.
“No,” said Jimmy, by no means disconcerted by the brutality of the question.
“Are you begging, or borrowing, or——”
“Stealing?” murmured Jimmy lazily.