“I wish I had ’em,” said Trafford, in a tone half regretful and half as if he was groping in his memory for something that bore on the matter.
“Why, haven’t you got them?” demanded Matthewson, between incredulity and fear.
“I!” exclaimed Trafford. “I got them! I’ve never even seen them. The man who fired the shot that killed Wing has got those papers. Find him, and you’re on the track of the papers.”
Matthewson grew pale with revulsion of feeling. That Trafford had the papers, he had had no question. He believed that all this had been merely leading up to an offer and he had shaped his course, as he thought, shrewdly, to the naming of a sum which would make the man eager to deal. Instead, he was told in a tone that carried conviction, that not only had Trafford not got the papers, but that they were in the possession of an unknown man for whom the law was hunting. If he was found, the papers would pass into the possession of the State and the public!
“In other words, we don’t know where they are?”
“We do know,” answered Trafford, with the solemnity of a man who feels that he is approaching accomplished purpose, “that these papers were the cause of Wing’s death. Tell me the man who was most concerned in getting possession of these papers and I’ll give Wing’s murderer to the hangman—or would, if you hadn’t abolished the hangman in Maine.”
Never had the case stood so naked before Matthewson as these words stripped it. For the murder itself he had felt comparative indifference, his interest in the papers overtopping all else. Since he was aware that the murdered man was his half-brother, he had been conscious of an approach to a feeling of relief that he was dead. Now, for the first time, he saw, as by lightning’s flash, the strife for the papers and the murder as cause and effect. The one danger grew into another, and each took fearfulness from the other. No effort of the will could quite quiet the nervous tremor which the realisation of this fact brought. His face was drawn with pain as he answered:
“There can be no man more concerned than I to get these papers.”
“Fortunately I know you were on the train when the shot was fired.”
The answer implied that but for this Trafford would suspect him, and Matthewson so understood it; but his anxiety was too great for him even to resent the implication. His brother was no less interested than himself in the papers. He must warn him, warn him instantly. This man was pitiless when a task was set before him; Henry must not let himself be drawn into a trap.