"This is your gratitude," Fenwick sneered. "I think we had better understand one another."
"I would give a great deal to understand you," the girl said boldly. "But we are wasting time fencing here like this, and I am very tired. You sent for me at this extraordinary hour, and I came. I have every right to know why you asked me to come here."
"Sit down," Fenwick growled. "I sent for you because I did not trust you. I sent for you because you have betrayed your promise. You are doing something that you told me you would not do."
"And what is that?" Vera asked.
"Just as if you did not know. Let us go back a bit, back three years and a half ago. Your father was alive in those days; it was just before he met his death in Mexico."
"I remember perfectly well," Vera said, quietly. "I am not likely to forget the time. Pray continue."
"Have patience please, I am coming to it all in time. Your father died more or less mysteriously, but there is not the shadow of a doubt that he was murdered. Nobody knows how he was murdered, but a good many people behind the scenes can guess why. The thing was hushed up, possibly because the tragedy took place in so remote a corner of the world—possibly because the authorities were bribed. Tell me the name of the man, or, at least, tell me the name of the one man who was with your father at the time of his death."
Vera's face paled slightly, but she kept her eyes steadily fixed on her companion's face. She began to understand where the point of the torture was coming in.
"I will not affect to misunderstand you," she said. "The man who was with my father at that time was Mr. Charles Evors. He was a sort of pupil of my father's, and had more than once accompanied him on his excursions. You want to insinuate that my father met his death at the hands of this young man, who, overcome by certain temptation and a desire to obtain the secret of the Four Finger Mine, murdered his master?"
"I am in a position to prove it," Fenwick said sternly. "I have given you practical proof of it, more than once. Why should I have interfered in the way I did, unless it was that I desired to save you pain? I could have brought the whole thing into the light of day, but I refrained from doing so because, it seemed to me, nothing could be gained by bringing the criminal to justice. I had another reason, too, as you know."