The judge leaned back in his chair and matched his finger ends reflectively. “William mentions a Mr. Harding as having accompanied him home in a carriage. Is he the man?”
Brant bowed.
“Then the boy must be very much mistaken in his estimate of Harding. He seems to think he is a gentleman.”
“I don’t doubt that in the least. Harding has probably been at some pains to make him think so. Just the same, you may believe me when I say that he is the worst possible companion for your son, or for any young man.”
“H’m; that is a little odd.” The judge was fairly surprised into saying so much, but since he did not go on, how was Brant to know that the odd thing was the exact coincidence of his opinion of Harding and Harding’s opinion of him as reported by William Langford? And not knowing this, he went on straightway to his own undoing.
“Odd that he should try to mislead your son? Knowing the man and his kind as well as I do, I should say that any other proceeding on his part would be odd. Harding is a professional gambler.”
The judge began to put two and two together.
“You say you know him well?”
“Yes; I have known him a long time, and I owe him an ill turn or so on my own account,” said Brant, whose throat still ached from the pressure of Harding’s fingers.
“Ah.” The judge’s mind began to lay hold of something like a sequence of threads in the mystery tangle. “Pardon me, Mr. Brant, if I am dull: but what possible use could a professional gambler make of my son? Surely William’s pocket money would be scarcely worth plotting for.”