She went to the side of the bed as she spoke, and pulled back a curtain. Ibbetson almost started at the gaunt, death-stricken face which met his view. He said quietly: “I must apologise for disturbing you, Mr Smith, and I am very sorry to see you so ill.”
“Better now, thank you.”
“I have come from London on purpose to ask you a question, and have had no end of difficulty in finding you out. I come from Clive Masters.”
“Poor old Clive! He didn’t think when we parted it would be so long before I saw him again. I just came down to these lodgings to get a breath of fresh air from Saturday to Monday, and here I’ve been ever since. I did rather wonder that Clive had never sent or written.”
“He did not know where you were.”
Smith shook his head feebly.
“Oh yes, he knew. I had one visitor from him, his cousin, Mr Trent. He came after the fifty pounds which had been left in my hands. You see, for a long time I was quite unconscious, so of course it gave Masters a good deal of anxiety. But it was no fault of mine.”
He stopped, gasping for breath.
“Did Mr Trent get the fifty pounds?” asked Jack. “Of course. Didn’t Masters tell you?” Smith said in some surprise. The woman had crept downstairs again, they could hear her husband’s grumbling tones and her faint replies. Jack stood looking with some perplexity at the wasted frame, wondering how much he ought to tell. He decided to tell him all.
“He did not so much as know it himself,” he said quietly. “From some motive or other, Mr Trent has advanced him the money but has never told him that it was his own, and received from you.”