Folliot put his thumbs in the armholes of his buff waistcoat and leaning back, seemed to be admiring his roses.
“Ah!” he said at last. “Revenge, now? A sort of vindictive man, was he? Wanted to get his knife into somebody, eh?”
“He wanted to get something of his own back from a man who'd done him,” answered Glassdale, with a short laugh. “That's about it!”
For a minute or two both men smoked in silence. Then Folliot—still regarding his roses—put a leading question.
“Give you any details?” he asked.
“Enough,” said Glassdale. “Braden had been done—over a money transaction—by these men—one especially, as head and front of the affair—and it had cost him—more than anybody would think! Naturally, he wanted—if he ever got the chance—his revenge. Who wouldn't?”
“And he'd tracked 'em down, eh?” asked Folliot.
“There are questions I can answer, and there are questions I can't answer,” responded Glassdale. “That's one of the questions I've no reply to. For—I don't know! But—I can say this. He hadn't tracked 'em down the day before he came to Wrychester!”
“You're sure of that?” asked Folliot. “He—didn't come here on that account?”
“No, I'm sure he didn't!” answered Glassdale, readily. “If he had, I should have known. I was with him till noon the day he came here—in London—and when he took his ticket at Victoria for Wrychester, he'd no more idea than the man in the moon as to where those men had got to. He mentioned it as we were having a bit of lunch together before he got into the train. No—he didn't come to Wrychester for any such purpose as that! But—”