“As you like,” Lawless answered.
Van Bleit went into the inner room.
“Check number one, Master Grit,” he murmured. Aloud he said: “I’d like a wash, old man. And then, if you’ve anything to eat, we won’t say no.”
When they were alone together, Van Bleit drew Denzil’s attention to the thinness of the partition between the two rooms, and laid a significant finger upon his lips.
“Leaks,” he said, and winked expressively.
He put his eye to a crack in the boarding.
“That’s where he’ll spy upon us when he thinks we’re unsuspecting,” he whispered, coming back. Then, whistling cheerily, he divested himself of his coat and plunged his face into a basin of cold water.
Later, when, having eaten, they sat outside smoking and talking, while the sun dipped below the horizon and the low wind died away, Van Bleit spoke of his trial and the night at the bungalow, giving a word picture of the shooting which by constant repetition he was beginning to believe. The recital made him something of a hero, but it did not reflect well on Colonel Grey.
“It was a damned trap,” he finished, and blew a cloud of smoke into the quiet air. “People who set traps for me are apt to find themselves ensnared.”
“I knew Simmonds. He seemed a decent, harmless sort of chap,” Lawless remarked after a pause. “I can’t associate him with traps, somehow. He lent me ten pounds once, and never bothered me to return it. I’m glad to remember now that I settled my account with him.”