“You lying young devil!” the Colonel ejaculated. “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Van Bleit wouldn’t either,” Hayhurst answered, calmly sipping his whisky, “if I hadn’t changed my sex in front of him. I left him my hair as a keepsake... His friendship wasn’t as platonic as old Grit’s.”
The Colonel half sat up as a light broke in on him.
“And that,” he exclaimed with conviction, “is how you got hold of the letters?”
“No.” Tom Hayhurst leant forward with his hand on the counterpane, his boyish face flushed and eager. “All the credit for getting hold of the letters belongs to Lawless,” he said. “I was merely the decoy for leading Van Bleit into his hands. He managed the rest. He’s fine, Grit Lawless—a man... a white man. My conscience! you ought to have been with us yesterday and seen him handle Van Bleit.”
He furnished a description of the scene on the veld, and the Colonel listened in silence, save for an occasional appreciative grunt.
“And I left him,” the boy finished admiringly, “guarding the beast. He might have put a bullet into him and saved himself the trouble; instead of which I expect he has been sitting by him all night. I tell you, when Grit undertakes a thing he doesn’t half do it.”
Colonel Grey looked thoughtfully at the speaker. He was remembering how at their last meeting Lawless had said to him, with reference to Van Bleit, that he was keener on killing the man than anything else.
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” he said, “that he didn’t put his bullet into him after you were gone.”
But Tom Hayhurst had no doubts on that head.