"I'm willing to take the risk," said Dobbs, nervously.
"Quite so. Just see if I've got your name correctly. Burton, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Wilfred Burton."
"I--I--don't understand----"
Van Zwieten deftly twitched the beard off the face of his visitor and snatched the shade off the lamp. "Do you understand now?" he said, laughing. "Look in the glass, sir, and see if Augustus Dobbs is not Wilfred Burton?"
Wilfred was ghastly pale, but more with rage at the failure of his scheme than with fear. With a cry of anger he sprang up and whipped a revolver out of his pocket. But Van Zwieten, on the alert for some such contingency, was quite as quick. He also snatched a revolver from the drawer, and with levelled weapons the two men faced one another. Van Zwieten was as calm as the other was excited.
"You are very clever, Mr. Burton," he said mockingly; "but when you are in disguise you should not wear a signet ring. I observed your crest on the letters written to Miss Scarse by your brother. Come! how long are we to stand like this? Is it a duel? If so, I am ready."
Wilfred uttered an oath and slipped his weapon into his pocket. With a laugh Van Zwieten tossed his into the drawer again, and sat down quite unruffled.
"I think we understand one another now," he said genially. "What induced you to play this trick on me?"