The amateur Vidocq made a slow sign of assent.
"As I have told you, I went into this thing out of sheer curiosity, and partly because there were obstructions put in my way. That's human nature. But afterward it laid hold of me and held me by its own grip. I'm not sure that there have been any simon-pure accidents at all. So far as I have gone, everything that has happened has been made to happen; has been carefully planned and prepared for in advance by some one of more than ordinary intelligence—and vindictiveness. And, unhappily, the motive is only too painfully apparent. The work on this irrigation project of yours is to be hampered and delayed by all possible means, even to the sacrificing of human life."
Again there was a silence in the thick-walled office room; a silence so strained that the clickings of the stone hammers in the yard and the rasping cacophonies of the hoisting engines at the dam seemed far removed. It was Bromley who spoke first, and his question was pointedly suggestive.
"You haven't stopped with the broad generalisation, Mr. Wingfield?"
"Meaning that I have found the man who is responsible for all these desperate and deadly doings? I am afraid I have. There would seem to be only one man in the world whose personal interests are at stake. Naturally, I haven't gone very deeply into that part of it. But didn't somebody tell me there is a fight on in the courts between the Arcadia Company and Colonel Craigmiles?—a fight in which delay is the one thing needful for the colonel?"
Ballard came back to the table and stood within arm's-reach of the speaker. His square jaw had taken on the fighting angle, and his eyes were cold and hard.
"What are you going to do about it, Mr. Wingfield? Have you arrived at that conclusion, also?"
Wingfield's doubtful glance was in young Blacklock's direction, and his reply was evasive.
"That is a very natural question; but doesn't it strike you, Mr. Ballard, that this is hardly the time or place to go into it?"
"No."