“This diabolical calumny will end in actually and literally taking my life from me,” thought Heyst.
Then, suddenly, he laughed. Portentously spectral, Mr. Jones frowned at the sound.
“Laugh as much as you please,” he said. “I, who have been hounded out from society by a lot of highly moral souls, can't see anything funny in that story. But here we are, and you will now have to pay for your fun, Mr. Heyst.”
“You have heard a lot of ugly lies,” observed Heyst. “Take my word for it!”
“You would say so, of course—very natural. As a matter of fact I haven't heard very much. Strictly speaking, it was Martin. He collects information, and so on. You don't suppose I would talk to that Schomberg animal more than I could help? It was Martin whom he took into his confidence.”
“The stupidity of that creature is so great that it becomes formidable,” Heyst said, as if speaking to himself.
Involuntarily, his mind turned to the girl, wandering in the forest, alone and terrified. Would he ever see her again? At that thought he nearly lost his self-possession. But the idea that if she followed his instructions those men were not likely to find her steadied him a little. They did not know that the island had any inhabitants; and he himself once disposed of, they would be too anxious to get away to waste time hunting for a vanished girl.
All this passed through Heyst's mind in a flash, as men think in moments of danger. He looked speculatively at Mr. Jones, who, of course, had never for a moment taken his eyes from his intended victim. And, the conviction came to Heyst that this outlaw from the higher spheres was an absolutely hard and pitiless scoundrel.
Mr. Jones's voice made him start.
“It would be useless, for instance, to tell me that your Chinaman has run off with your money. A man living alone with a Chinaman on an island takes care to conceal property of that kind so well that the devil himself—”