Deringham glanced at him languidly. "As you know, that is not the reason. Now I do not ask for a return of the money you obtained from me—but I want the thing stopped immediately."
Hallam poured out a glass of wine. "You will have to put it straight."
"Well," said Deringham, "if you insist. I am sincerely sorry I ever saw or heard of you. You, of course, remember the conditions on which I made that deal with you. I desired Mr. Alton kept away from Somasco—for a time, and now I want a definite promise from you that he will be free from any further molestation."
"Then," said Hallam, with a grin, "what's your programme if I don't agree? You would put the police on to me?"
"No," said Deringham, making the best play he could, though he realized the weakness of his hand. "That would not appear advisable—or necessary. It would be simpler to warn my kinsman."
Hallam laid his hand upon the table, and Deringham noticed that it was coarse and ill-shaped, but suggested a brutal tenacity of grasp.
"Bluff, with nothing behind it. You don't take me that way," he said. "Now I'll put my cards right down in front of you. Alton is not a fool, and you couldn't tell him anything he doesn't know already. The trouble is, he can prove nothing. He has a tolerably short temper, and one day he 'most hammered the life out of another man in the Somasco mill. That man didn't like him before, and it's quite possible he fell foul of Alton after it, but where does that take in me? Got hold of that, haven't you? Well, then, there's just this difference between you and me. I could tell Alton one or two things about you he didn't know!"
"I would be willing to take my chance of his believing you," said
Deringham.
Hallam laughed. "For a man of business you have a plaguy bad memory. Now it seems to me quite likely that the man I talked about has had quite enough of fooling with Alton, and we'll let what you asked for go at that, because there's something else we're coming to. There was a cheque you gave me, and I had who it was drawn by and payable to put down on the slip when I passed it through my bank. Now I've got that slip, and after I'd had a talk with him, Alton wouldn't wonder what you gave me all those dollars for."
Deringham was silent almost a minute, for he knew his opponent had seen the weak point. Then he said, "If I admitted that you were right?"