Fleming only growled in reply.
“Don’t wonder that you feel sore,” Connelly commented. “They certainly put the skids under you in great shape. That Matson is a bird and no mistake.”
“I’ll get even with him yet,” Fleming broke out stormily. “I won’t let him crow over me. I won’t pay that money.”
“Oh, yes, you will,” returned Connelly, calmly. “He’s got you where the hair is short in that matter of the jail. It mightn’t have been so bad if you’d kept your nerve and denied everything. But he got you so rattled that you admitted knocking that fellow down and then the gravy was spilled.”
“What was the use of keeping it up?” queried Fleming. “He had the facts.”
“Maybe he did,” admitted Connelly, doubtfully, “and then again he may have had only some half facts and made a bluff at the rest. He’s got nerve enough to do it. I have to hand it to him. But now you have admitted it, you’ll have to pony up. What’s a couple of thousand to you, anyway?”
“It isn’t so much the money,” Fleming muttered gloomily. “It’s knowing that he got it out of me and is probably laughing at me this minute.”
“Let him laugh,” said Connelly, with the philosophy that it is so easy to use where others are concerned. “We’ll have our laugh later on. But you want to get that money paid right away, because if we put over on Matson what we’re planning, he’ll be so furious that he’ll send you to jail sure. But if the thing is settled, he’ll be helpless.
“Another thing, unless I’m very much mistaken, Matson himself has given us a mighty valuable tip. He’s put a spoke in his own wheel.”
“What do you mean?” asked Fleming.