'No,' he said. 'But I'm taking no chances, see. You heard what the Captain said. He said if you weren't here in the morning, I'd get no passage on the Arisaig.' 'But, good God,' I said, 'I'm not going to run away.'
'Bloody right, you're not,' he answered sharply. 'Now get going.'
'Listen,' I said. 'I just want to stay up here for a few minutes more. I won't run away. I give you my word.'
'Think I'd take your word. It's daft, you are, to talk of such a thing.' His dark eyes watched me narrowly, the gun gripped in his hand. 'It's up to something, you are, man,' he said excitedly. 'And I'm taking no chances. I'm wanted for murder. And the only man who can get me out of the country safely is Captain Manack. Now, get down that shaft. Try anything and I'll shoot you.'
I laughed. 'You wouldn't dare,' I said. 'Captain Manack needs a live miner to open up that gallery. A dead one's no good to him. Look, Dave — I'll tell you why I want to stay up top a little longer. There's a girl up at the house. She used to know my mother. I've arranged to meet her down here. There, will that satisfy you? She's coming down at three o'clock — that's in ten minutes' time.'
'You're lying,' he breathed excitedly. 'I don't believe a word of it. It's up to something, you are. I know it. You want to get away on your own — turn King's Evidence, maybe. If you hadn't turned up the other night, I'd have taken Sylvia Coran with me and the police would never have known I'd survived the disappearance of the Isle of Mull. Your fault it is that I'm on the run. Do you understand? Your fault. And now you want to get away from me. Now you think I'm dangerous.' He was quivering with the violence of his feelings and there was a murderous gleam in his eyes. 'Well, I am dangerous,' he added. 'I'm not afraid of using a gun. And I don't want any more talk about girls. You're not meeting a girl. You're trying to get away. All that nonsense about seeing the old man safely up to the house. Lies, all damned, lousy, bloody lies. You're trying to get clear of us. Well, you're not going to do it, see. Now, get down that shaft or I'll start shooting.'
He was all worked up. The gun literally quivered in his hand as he brought it up. I believe he wanted to use it. I think he wanted to feel the power that firing a gun gives a man. He needed that sense of power, for he was scared — and that made him dangerous. I sat down on the protecting wall of the shaft. I did it with an assumption of ease which I certainly did not feel. 'Have some sense, Dave,' I said. 'Fire that thing and it'll be heard for miles. Kill me and — "
'It's fitted with a silencer,' he interrupted with a tight-lipped grin.
'All right,' I said. 'But if you kill me, Manack won't do anything for you. Right now he needs me.'
'I shan't kill you,' he answered.