"Well, sisters dear, we're cleaning up—eh! I had the devil's own time matching that letter-paper at Brentanos', and I ran a pretty big risk leaving the house—but, say, it was worth it!" For a moment he could only laugh. "First, let's split the pile. I told you I was always square with my pals. Here's a thousand for you, Angelica,"—slipping two bills under Mrs. De Peyster's pillow,—"and a thousand for you, Matilda,"—thrusting the amount into her hands,—"and a thousand for your dear brother Archibald,"—slipping his share into a vest pocket.
Neither of the two women dared refuse the money.
"But—but," Mrs. De Peyster gasped thickly, "it's an outrageous forgery!"
"A forgery, I grant you, my dear Angelica," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly. "But if by outrageous you mean crude or obvious, I beg to correct you. Even if I must say it myself, that forgery was strictly first-class."
"But it's a forgery!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
"My dears, don't you worry about that," he reassured them soothingly. "There'll be no comeback. That detective and his agency, and Mrs. Allistair behind them, first tried robbery, then tried bribery. They're all in bad themselves. So stop worrying; you're in no danger at all from arrest for forgery or fraud. There'll never be a peep from any of them."
This seemed sound reasoning, but Mrs. De Peyster did not acknowledge herself comforted.
"Besides," Mr. Pyecroft went on, with a sudden flash of wrathful contempt, "if there's anybody under God's sun I like to slip something over on it's those damned vermin of private detectives! And the swells that employ them! I hope that Mrs. Allistair gets stung good and plenty!"
"But Mrs. De Peyster!" wailed that lady—she couldn't help it, though she tried to keep inarticulate her sense of complete annihilation. "When they publish that letter the damage will have been done. It's a forgery, but nobody will believe her when she says so, and she can't prove it! She'll be ruined!"