"While I," cried Carrington, rising and speaking insolently, "snatched up the will and walked out of the front door cautiously, so as not to waken those servants of yours."
"After which," put in Mallien viciously, "you went through the jungle and buried the will under the sundial."
"I did," admitted Carrington recklessly. "You know so much that you may as well know all, for Leigh being alive you cannot touch me in any way. I buried the will, as you say, and afterward wrote that letter to Mrs. Beatson, so that she might find the will and avert suspicion from myself."
"Why Mrs. Beatson?" asked Rupert, disgusted with his former friend's brazen assurance.
"Because, according to you, she had overheard the conversation between you and the vicar. I guessed that, if she produced the will, suspicion would fall on her. Our meeting her on that night, Hendle, was pure chance, but it helped on my plans. I wished her to procure the will to you, and thus bring suspicion on herself as having killed the vicar."
"You infernal villain!"
"Oh, I don't see that," said Carrington carelessly. "Mrs. Beatson would be none the worse for having her neck stretched. But I would not have allowed things to go so far as that. All I wished, was for her to give you the will, and then when you consulted me, as I knew you would, I intended to persuade you to burn it in order to keep the property and pay me five thousand pounds for holding my tongue. You understand."
"Yes," said Rupert quietly, "you explain your villainy so carefully that I can scarcely help understanding. It was you, then, who dropped a clue near the sundial to incriminate Mallien?"
"It was me," replied Carrington, with cynical hardihood. "I snatched the opal by chance from Mallien's watch-chain when we struggled in the avenue. Only when I got away and found what was in my hand did I see how I could get the upper hand of him. I recognized the ornament at once as the one he had shown me on the first day we met."
"You scoundrel!" shrieked Mallien furiously, and would have struck the barrister, but that he swerved. Then Rupert interfered.