"Colonel Towton can swear that he heard it from Diabella, and I can prove that you are the fortune-teller. These facts only admit of one interpretation, Maunders. Either you are an accomplice of The Spider or you are The Spider himself."
"It's a lie, it's an infernal lie," cried Maunders greatly agitated.
"It's the truth, and you know it. Your face reveals the truth."
"How can you tell that when we are nearly in darkness with this fog?" asked Maunders between his teeth.
"I can see well enough, and the darkness is easily remedied. Colonel, will you please light the lamp while I keep an eye on our friend here."
Maunders cursed his former schoolfellow ardently, while Towton quietly lighted the tall lamp which stood in the corner. The light soon glowed through a rosy shade, adorned in a tawdry manner with artificial flowers, and Vernon stepped up to Maunders. The scamp met his scrutiny unflinchingly, and displayed a courage worthy of a better cause. He was pale with apprehension, for he well knew, in spite of his bravado, that he was in a tight place. But the crimson hue of the light filtering through the shade threw a delicate glow on his finely-cut face. Facing the two gentlemen, who knew him past all denial to be a scoundrel, he looked as handsome a lad as ever stepped in shoe-leather. It seemed a terrible pity that so fair an outside should mask such internal evil. Something of this sort occurred to Vernon as he stepped back with a sigh.
"I wish you were as decent a fellow as you look," he said in a regretful voice. "In heaven's name, Maunders, why can't you be an honest man? You have a handsome face, a fine figure, you have had the best education England can afford, and you hold a good position in the social world. Finally, your aunt, Mrs. Bedge, who adopted you as her son, loves you dearly, and if you have not sufficient self-respect to keep straight for your own sake you might behave like an honest gentleman for hers."
Maunders might have been moved by this discourse, or he might not. At all events, he showed little signs of feeling on his classic face. "It's all very well your talking," he said sullenly and looking down, a trifle ashamed, if indeed he could be said to display any emotion, "but I have been brought up to live like a prince. I have the tastes of a duke and the income of a pauper, so I must gratify my fancies somehow. I am no more proud of having had to take to fortune-telling for my bread and butter than you are in setting up as a private detective. Neither business is respectable, but the law can say nothing to you or me."
"Nothing to me, certainly," Vernon assured him coldly, "since I am, and always have been, on the side of justice. Your fortune-telling may be innocent enough in the main, since you prefer wringing money from silly people instead of taking up a good business. But it's your connection with The Spider that is dangerous to you."
"I am not The Spider, and I have no connection with the beast."