"I can well divine to what you would allude," returned Arthur; "and I despise your menace. Go and say, if thou wilt, that the Earl of Ellingham is the half-brother of him——"
"Who was hanged on Monday morning!" growled Old Death; and then he chuckled horribly in the depth of his malignity. "Ha! ha! ha! the proud and wealthy Earl of Ellingham the brother of a highwayman who was hanged,—and that brother, too, the elder one, and born in lawful wedlock! Ah! this would be a pretty tale to circulate at the West End!"
"Scoundrel! you cannot provoke me to anger," said the Earl, calmly; "but you may move me to invoke the aid of justice to punish you for daring to imprison me during four long weeks in a noisome dungeon—a crime for which the penalty would be transportation for the remainder of your miserable life. Moreover, that same justice would require of you full and ample explanations respecting those rooms filled with property of immense value, and of such a miscellaneous nature that the various articles could not have been honestly obtained! Ah! you shrink—you recoil from that menace! Think you that any ridiculous punctilio has prevented me from forcing the locks of those rooms and examining their contents? No: the day after you became my prisoner here, and when I ascertained beyond all doubt that you were the tenant of those rooms, I hesitated not to visit them, to glean evidence against you. Now, old man, you see that you are in my power; and you will do well not to push my patience beyond the sphere of indulgence."
"And what if I tell you all you want to know?" said Benjamin Bones, appalled by the unveiling of the fearful precipice on which he stood.
"Give me the fullest and completest explanation of many circumstances in the unravelling of which I feel a special interest—spare me the trouble of adopting other means to obtain the solution of those mysteries to which I possess a clue," exclaimed the Earl; "and I shall forthwith liberate you and your companions, having previously taken measures to prevent you from holding any farther interest in this house or the tenement in Turnmill Street, with which the subterranean passage communicates."
"And—and my property?" gasped Old Death.
"To allow you to retain it, were a sin," answered the Earl emphatically: "to give it up to the magisterial authorities, or to dispose of it for the benefit of the poor, would be to court an inquiry which must inevitably lead to the mention of your name and the consequent apprehension of your person—a result which would be an indirect forfeiture of the promise I have given and now repeat: namely, to permit yourself and companions to depart with impunity on condition that you make a full and complete confession in regard to all the points wherein I am interested. What, then, can be done with that property?" exclaimed the nobleman: "there is but one course to pursue—and that is, to destroy it!"
"Destroy it!—destroy it!" groaned Old Death, writhing with mental anguish on his chair: "what? destroy all that hard-earned wealth—those treasures——"
"Every article!" interrupted the nobleman emphatically; "and consider yourself fortunate in quitting this house to breathe the air of liberty, rather than to be consigned to a gaol."
"Oh! my God! my God!" cried Old Death, reduced to despair by the lamentable prospect now placed before him.