"How you harp on Beryl."
"Because I am sure he has everything to do with the matter. It was a carefully-arranged trap, and you have fallen into it. What Mrs. Gilroy expects to gain I can't think. However, Beryl has found himself mistaken over the money. The new will—so Durham told me to tell you—was burnt by the old man, and so the old one, giving you all, stands. Both Mrs. Gilroy and Mr. Beryl are left out in the cold. And that is all the better for your safety."
"Why?" asked Bernard, looking puzzled.
"Because the person they hired to do the business—your double—will expect to be paid a large sum. If not, he will round on them."
"You forget. If he confesses he puts a rope round his own throat according to your theory."
"True enough. But there's Judas. He'll have his pound of flesh, or make an unholy row."
"Dick," said Bernard, seriously, "it's impossible that a lad of thirteen can be such a villain as you make him out to be."
"I tell you that lad is a born criminal, and if he goes on as he is doing he'll come to the gallows, where, according to his grandmother, his forefathers suffered before him. Judas is as cunning as a fox, and very strong as to his will. Also, he is greedy of money——"
"You describe a man of experience."
"I don't know where Judas got his experience," said Conniston, coolly, "but as Mrs. Gamp said of Bailly, junior, 'All the wickedness of the world is print to him.'"