“Might be the South Pole,” he muttered pettishly. “Fancy that old chap having nothing better to do with his money than spend it over weeds!”
“Now, if I had half,” he said, after refilling his pipe, “I could go to the old admiral and say—Oh, what a fool I am!”
But somehow that idea about Brettison and his money seemed to pervade his brain for the next few days, and to be mixed up with Stratton and his troubles. He recollected the money lying in crisp banknotes upon the table, and recalled that it was a heavy sum. That was an entirely fresh view to take; could Stratton have borrowed that money from Brettison? Likely enough, and that might have caused the estrangement. People did not like lending money. They would offer to do so, but when the demand was made they were a little bitter.
“‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’” muttered Guest, quoting from his favourite author, and then adding, “if you can help it.”
“Bah! That upsets the idea of the lady in the case,” he muttered impatiently. “What a fool I am! As if it was likely that poor old Mal would try to make his quietus with a bare bodkin—modernised into a six-shooter—because old Brettison was huffed at his borrowing money. I must pump it out of the poor fellow somehow.”
That evening he went to Stratton’s chambers, but could get no reply; and he waited about on the stairs till, growing uneasy and suspicious once more, he knocked again, and listened at the letter slit.
Just then he heard steps, and the occupant of the upstairs chambers ascended to the landing.
“How do?” he said. “Mr Stratton’s out. I met him on the Embankment not half an hour ago.”
That swept away the black, mental cobwebs once more for a time about Guest’s brain, and he went away relieved—but not before writing his intention of dropping in about ten that night, and thrusting his card in at the slit—to dine at his club, after which he went into the library to read up some old legal cases, and think about Edie.
He was punctual to the time appointed in Benchers’ Inn, but there was no light in Stratton’s window, none in Brettison’s, and he waited till eleven in the expectation of seeing his friend come back.