“Tell me plainly what you think you know,” I said, looking away from him.
“I know that two men, a captain in Baylor’s Horse and a sergeant of the Continental Army, are here in New York for the purpose of seizing Benedict Arnold and carrying him back to Tappan. The sergeant I met this morning, thanks to a two-faced gentleman who shall pay dearly for his meddling; and the captain—”
“Well,” said I; “and the captain?”
His eyes lighted with a blaze of triumphant cunning.
“You are a good actor, Captain Page, but not quite good enough. Will you unbar the door and let me go? Or shall I call for help?”
“Neither,” I rejoined briefly, drawing my sword and laying it across my knees. “A movement out of your chair, or a tone louder than you have been using, and you are a dead man, Mr. James Askew.”
The threat quelled him, or rather I should say, it put him the keener upon his wits. I saw nothing for it now but a bloody murder, and was trying to nerve myself to it when he spoke again, smoothly insinuating.
“We seem to have arrived at what our friends the French would call an impasse, Captain Page,” he said quietly. “I can hang you; therefore you dare not let me go. The alternative is for you to pass that shining slip of steel through me two or three times; and that, too, has its drawbacks. You don’t come of murdering stock, Captain Page, though I don’t doubt you have killed your antagonist often enough in hot blood.”
“I was thinking more of what I should do with your carcass after the fact,” I objected bluntly.
“Ah; that is another drawback—one which I overlooked at the moment. It would be inconvenient to have a dead man in your room, with no way of getting rid of the corpus delicti. But if I might offer a suggestion; the river is not far away, and under cover of night you and your sergeant might compass the funeral—though not without a possible risk.”