"Leaving me to the mercies of your ancient enemy in the dark—who thought me your accomplice. You can hardly blame him under the circumstances. But I got the best of him—luckily for me, and disarmed him. If you had remained a few moments longer you might have taken part in our very interesting conversation. Do you still deny all this?"
McGuire, stifled with his fear and fury, was incapable of a reply.
"Very good. So long as we understand each other thus far, perhaps you will permit me to go on. As you know, I came to you in good faith. I wanted to help you in any way that a gentleman could do. Last night you tricked me, and put my life in danger. If you had killed Kennedy everything would have been all right for you. And I would have been accused of the killing. If I had been killed no harm would have been done at all. That was your idea. It was a clever little scheme. Pity it didn't work out."
McGuire's faltering courage was coming back.
"Go on!" he muttered desperately.
"Thanks," said Peter, "I will. One shot of yours scraped Kennedy's shoulder. He was bleeding badly, so I took him to the Cabin and fixed him up. He was rather grateful. He ought to have been. I gave him a drink too—several drinks. You said he wouldn't talk, but he did."
"You made him talk, d——n you," McGuire broke in hoarsely.
"No. He volunteered to talk. I may say, he insisted upon it. You see, I happened to have the gentleman's acquaintance——"
"You——!"
"We met on the steamer coming over when we were escaping from Russia. His name was Jim Coast then. He was a waiter in the dining saloon. So was I. Funny, isn't it?"