“I have not,” Lawless answered. “All the happenings have been going forward here during my absence. I have come to receive, not to give, explanations.”
The frown on the Colonel’s brow showed heavier and more fierce. He sat forward and stared at the speaker, who, still relaxing his inert muscles, lay indolently back in his chair.
“Damn your impudence!” he said. “What do you mean by that?”
“Why,” asked Lawless imperturbably, “were you so anxious a month ago for my services and advice?”
“It was before Van Bleit’s trial I wrote that letter... If you’d been on the spot we’d have hanged the brute.”
“And why was my presence necessary to the carrying out of justice?”
The Colonel pulled savagely at his moustache. He was thinking, not so much of his present annoyance, but of the chance he believed had been lost of getting hold of the letters. He had come to consider it a practical certainty that had Lawless remained at his post success would have been achieved. He looked at the thin, scarred face, at the indolent grace of the outstretched limbs, and his strong sense of indignation, of having been somehow defrauded, increased. He had paid well for this man’s services; he had a right to command them.
“Plainly, I couldn’t hang him before getting hold of the letters,” he said. “It might have been defeating my own ends. Had you been on the spot—as I had every right to expect you to be—we could have recovered them.”
“Do you happen to know where they are?” Lawless asked.
“Denzil had them then... And Denzil without Van Bleit would be easy to deal with.”