“How?” burst in Gwyn.
“Easy enough, sir. Found out where the highest gallery ran, stuck a big tin o’ stuff over it, and set it off with a little ’lectric machine on the rocks. I knowed everybody would soon get out.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Gwyn.
“Be quiet, my boy. Very clever and ingenious, Mr Dinass; and we thought you were drowned.”
“Me, sir? No, I knew a trick worth two of that.”
“But may I ask why you have come to me now after ruining our property?”
“Why, because they’ve chucked me over, sir. They say I insult them by thinking they would ever do such a thing. That was when I went and asked ’em for my money. Last thing was, when I told ’em it was their doing, and they set me at it, they said I were trying to blackmail ’em—that they never thought I meant such a thing, and that if I warn’t off they’d hand me over to the police.”
“Exactly like them,” said the Colonel.
“Yes, sir, just like ’em. I call it mean, and I told ’em so, and that if they threatened me I’d speak out and let people know the truth. And I says at last, ‘I give you a month to think over it; and if you don’t give me my hundred pounds then, I shall blow the whole business, and how do you like that?’”
“And what did Mr Dix say?”