Then, with a swift movement, he locked the door, straightened himself out, and strode with outstretched hand to where Fairfield stood, stony-faced and impassive. The baronet deliberately put his hands behind him, and the other halted suddenly.
"Fairfield!"
Then it was that the impassivity of Sir Ralph vanished. He gripped his visitor by the arm, almost shaking him in a gust of quick, nervous passion.
"You fool—you damned fool! Why have you come here? If they catch you, you will be hanged. Do you know that? For all I know the place is watched. They may have seen you come in. Perhaps the place is surrounded now."
"I'll risk it," said the other coolly, drawing a chair up to the table. "I've got to risk something. But I don't think they saw me come in. I don't think they'll catch me, and if they do I don't think they'll hang me. What do you think of that, Fairfield?"
There was the old languid mockery in his voice, but his friend, looking at him closely, could see that the face had become a trifle thinner, that beneath the dirt that begrimed it there were haggard traces that betrayed worry and sleeplessness. Fairfield had thought much of Robert Grell lately, but he had never dreamed that the hunted man would come to him—come to him in broad daylight, without a word of warning. Did Grell know that he was in touch with the police? Had he come, a driven, desperate man, to fling reproaches at the friend who had joined in the hunt? That was unlikely. Grell, murderer or not, was not that type. He did nothing without a reason. He was, Fairfield reflected, a murderer—a murderer who had not dared stay to face the consequences of his deed. That surely severed all claims, whatever their old friendship might have been.
"What do you want?" he asked, with a hard note in his voice. "Why have you come to me?"
The man in the chair lifted his shoulders.