Throughout the bewildering excitement in the boat consequent on Miss Dymmock's benevolence, Leslie had been conscious of a weak spot in his armour, which, if it had been detected by his antagonist, might prove his undoing. Nugent's ominous rejoinder suggested that the weak spot had been found, and that he was being led into the comfortable seclusion of the Ottermouth Club for the purpose of having it pierced.
"We had better go into the card-room," said Nugent. "There will be less chance of interruption there, though at present there is no one in the club. Every one has gone home to lunch."
The card-room was on the first floor, with a window overlooking the sea. Leslie remained standing just inside the door, but Nugent sat down at one of the card tables, his fingers drawing fantastic patterns on the green cloth as he seemed to consider how best to open the subject. Suddenly he raised his eyes, and Leslie saw with surprise that there was no hostility in them—only a look of deep concern.
"You are in a tight place, my friend," he said. "Are you aware that you are under the gravest suspicion of having murdered Levi Levison?"
"I am not surprised to hear it, since you knew of my engagement to meet Levison on the marsh that night," replied Leslie. "I had more than half expected that you would give evidence to that effect at the inquest."
Nugent brushed the insinuation aside with a contemptuous gesture. "My dear Chermside, if you are going to approach the matter in that spirit, we shall come to grief," he said. "Can't you see that our interests are absolutely identical—that if you fall I fall too. Not quite so far perhaps, but a good deal further than I care to contemplate. I don't pretend to any affection for you, after the way you have played the mischief with everything, but your arrest on this charge would mean my social ruin—if nothing worse. The motive for your crime, and all that led up to it, would be sure to come to light—even if you did not plead guilty and put forward the motive as an extenuating circumstance."
This was selfish villainy, naked and unashamed, but it sounded like honest villainy. Leslie had realized from the first that if his appointment with Levison transpired, the case against him would be black indeed, but he had expected that Nugent would rejoice in that fact. It had not occurred to him that his former accomplice would be dragged down in his fall.
"It will be time enough to talk of motive when I admit that I killed Levison," he said, in a burst of indignation.
"You didn't kill him? There are no witnesses. Straight now, as from man to man, standing on the brink of the same precipice?"
"I'll swear I didn't."