At this the quaint smile became quizzical. “Partly; but only partly. Have you taken any steps as yet?”
“I have. After a good bit of trouble and expense I have at last succeeded in tracing the man Morgan McNabb. He is under arrest in Dallas, Texas, and I shall have him brought back as soon as the necessary papers can be obtained.”
“And your object in bringing him back?”
“Is to make him give the name of the man who hired him to put the dynamite under my drilling plant. That man is going to the penitentiary, Mr. Hartridge, if any effort of mine can send him there.”
The schoolmaster removed his spectacles to polish them, and for a time sat staring with unshielded eyes into the heart of the coal fire in the grate.
“You have all the precedents on your side,” he admitted at length. “It is your right to prosecute if you choose to do so. Yet I venture to predict that you will be exceedingly sorry if you bring Morgan McNabb to Tennessee and extort his confession—a confession which will necessarily be made public. Besides, there is a much easier way in which you can apprehend his principal.”
“Are you willing to indicate the way?” snapped Tregarvon.
“Not altogether willing; no. You are at heart a much flintier young man than you appeared to be when we first met, Mr. Tregarvon. It is an inheritance from some one of your Cornish forebears, I imagine. But I have allowed myself to be overpersuaded. You have your car here?”
“Yes.”
“I shall ask you to drive me. Will you trust me that far?”