"Don't lie!" Captain Francis Newcombe coolly and viciously twisted at the flesh in which his fingers were enmeshed. "I'm going to have the whole story now—or else you'll follow Paul Cremarre. You've seen enough in the last three years to know that I never make an idle threat. It will be quite simple. You will disappear. I, myself, will be the most solicitous of all about your disappearance. It would never be attributed to me. Is it quite plain, Runnells? You deserve it, anyway! Perhaps it's a waste of time to do anything but get rid of you now before daylight. I'd rather like to do it, Runnells. It's rather bad policy to give a man a chance to stab you a second time in the back."
The man was almost in a state of collapse. Captain Francis Newcombe loosened his hold, and, standing back a little and toying with caressing fingers at his revolver's mechanism, surveyed the other with eyes that, in meditation now, were utterly callous.
"I—I know you'd do it." Runnells, gasping for his breath, blurted out his words wildly. "I know it wouldn't do me any good to lie—but I ain't lying. Can't you believe me? I wasn't in it at all. I never knew Paul was on the island until just now."
"Go on!" encouraged Captain Francis Newcombe ironically. "So it wasn't you who telephoned Polly from the boathouse here a little while ago?"
Runnells' eyes widened.
"Me? No!" he cried out vehemently. "I haven't been near here."
Captain Francis Newcombe frowned. He knew Runnells and Runnells' calibre intimately and well. The man's surprise was genuine. Another angle! It was possible, of course, that Paul Cremarre had been playing a lone hand; but against that was Runnells' own actions to-night. Well, as it stood now, it was a very simple matter to put Runnells' sincerity, or insincerity, to the proof.
"No, of course not!" he observed caustically. "I didn't expect you to admit it. Why don't you tell me you spent the evening playing solitaire, then went to bed and slept like a child until I rapped on your door?"
Runnells lifted miserable, hunted eyes to Captain Francis Newcombe's face.
"Because I'm only telling you the truth," he said, with frantic insistence in his voice. "And that wouldn't be the truth. I'll tell you everything—everything. You can see for yourself it's Gawd's fact. I wasn't asleep when you knocked. I had been out of my room, but I hadn't been out of the house; and I hadn't been in bed more than ten minutes when I heard you at the door."