“I can’t escape from it!”
“If I could be sure that yours was not the hand which killed Brean, I would help you to do so.”
For a moment, the meaning of these words scarcely penetrated to Stornaway’s intelligence. The voice which uttered them was so hard that he could not believe he had heard aright. He looked up, staring. The eyes that looked down into his were as cold as sea-water. But the Captain said steadily: “I could bring you off—if I chose to do it.”
Stornaway passed the tip of his tongue between his lips. A little colour mounted to his cheeks. “There’s a fortune in the cavern!” he said, rather breathlessly. “Only keep your mouth shut, arid you shall have———”
“I do not want your fortune, or any part of it. Nor would it save you if I were to keep my mouth shut. The Runner is not here by chance: he knows that somewhere in this district the gold is hidden. Sooner or later he will find it, make no mistake about that! I’m not here to help you to the enjoyment of a fortune: it goes back to the Treasury. As for you, you may end the affair as a felon and a murderer, or as a mere tool, deceived by a rogue. If you did not kill Brean I have no interest in sending you to the gallows. If you show me Brean’s body, stabbed as you have described, and show me also where the gold is lying, I will bring you off scatheless.”
There was a long pause. “How?” Stornaway said at last, watching him.
“I will tell the Runner that you have been entertaining Coate in all good faith; that when it was proved to you what his reason was for wishing to visit Kellands you realized that it was due to your folly and gabbing tongue that these crimes came about; that in your anxiety to atone for your unwitting share in them you used your best endeavours to discover where the gold was hidden; that you and I went to search for it in one of the caverns with which this country abounds. You will appear a fool, but not a knave.” Stornaway said suspiciously: “Why should you do this?”
“I have a reason,” John replied.
“I don’t understand! What reason could you have?”
The level gaze indifferently scanned his face. “I shall not tell you that. It is nothing you would understand. But you may trust me to do as I have promised.”