“Yes,” he said as he replaced the letter in the envelope; “of course you have sent him no money?”
“Of course not. I have not answered the letter at all.”
“Good. Well, it is not an idle threat about Jakoub. Jakoub is on board a tramp which is due in Southampton to-morrow. If he is not arrested he will make straight for here. Welfare has gone to Southampton to see what happens and to keep an eye on him. If necessary, he will follow him here. Then we shall have to decide on the best means of keeping him quiet.”
“I do hope he won’t be arrested,” I said; “why do you think he may be? Tell me how you know all this.”
“Welfare heard it all from Van Ermengen. But I had better tell you the story right through. Have you got any of those cigars left?”
I produced the cigar box, and as Edmund settled himself to smoke comfortably in an arm-chair, I could see that he was tired and short of sleep.
“Welfare and I only met in London yesterday,” he said. “We met by appointment, after parting at Marseilles. We thought we could cover up our tracks better by taking different ways. I think you may take it that Montgomery and Ringrose have finally disappeared from the knowledge of mankind. We have evaporated, volatilised in fact. I ought first to tell you that we had to sell the poor little Astarte all standing for about a third of her value. It was a nasty jar parting with her to a Dago Jew anyhow, but of course it was a forced sale. There was no time to bargain. Apart from the loss, we both felt that our accepting such a price looked fishy. But that could not be helped, and in any case, as Montgomery and Ringrose, our number was up! We had to get rid of her quickly and clear out.”
“Of course,” I said as he paused in his narrative, “you know how sorry I am to have parted with the Astarte. The price cannot be helped. The loss does not matter as long as you do get clear in the end.”
“Well, I hope to,” Edmund replied dubiously, eyeing his cigar. “It all depends on Jakoub. As long as he is free we can manage him. Once arrested he would of course try to drag us all in. He would do that out of spite, anyhow; besides, it would be his last card, his only hope of pardon. And we are not sure how much he knows about us. But he knows you in your proper name.”
I felt the perspiration break out all over my body as I thus saw clearly for the first time all the possible consequences of Jakoub’s arrest, of his turning informer. I knew for the first time what it meant to have one’s “heart sink,” for it seemed as though my heart actually became a weight in my body of which I was conscious, and a horrible sensation of weakness spread downwards to my thighs. For a few moments I am sure I could not have risen from my chair as I realised that everything that social man holds dear was, in my case, in the keeping of a rascally Arab whom the Law was seeking to attack. And the Law was on the side for which I had sacrificed so much! I was as anxious as the Law to stop the atrocious conspiracy that was poisoning a race. And I had actually achieved my object—illegally. The bishop’s phrase recurred to me. “Surely,” I thought, “here was a case where the Law became an organised stupidity.”