"But why?" Lanyard argued as one perplexed but reasonable. "Have you never been mistaken in reading the hearts of those whom you employ? Remember what you must have known about Mallison before you reckoned him skillful and unscrupulous enough to be of use to you. Was it altogether wise, do you think, to trust such a one to resist the temptation to keep for himself the plunder you had set him to steal and bestow on me for my undoing? Was it wise to forget the least miscarriage of the scheme would leave you unable to prove your tool had been false to your trust? Was it wise to believe Mallison too dense to think of that for himself? How can you be sure he didn't put the jewels into his own pocket instead of into mine?"
"See here—!" Morphew stammered, equanimity at last shattered beyond dissembling.
"Ah! but there I have you," Lanyard chuckled. "There I touched the heel of Achilles—eh, monsieur?—your vulnerable spot! The truth is, you dare trust nobody; you don't know that Mallison didn't play you false, any more than you know now he won't, when the pinch comes, turn State's evidence and betray you to save himself."
"Get out of my way!" Morphew bit through his cigar and cast it from him with a violent hand. "I've had enough of this, I've stood for about all of your damned nonsense—"
"By all means, monsieur"—Lanyard politely stood clear of the door—"hasten to the police station and put the fear of God into the heart of this poor thing whom you were ass enough to trust. You haven't a minute to lose if you hope to succeed in stopping the mouths of those four whom the police are even now, doubtless, putting through the third degree—"
"Four?" Morphew checked short in ponderous dismay, his heavy head low between his shoulders and swaying like that of a tormented animal. "Four!"
"Bless my soul! did I forget to tell you? How unpardonably stupid of me. The lady so lost to shame that she openly accuses herself of being Mrs. Mallison, the enterprising Mr. Howlin, and his associate Mr. Regan—all stepped with Mallison into the trap you'd set for Mrs. McFee, for purposes of blackmail, and sprung it on themselves. If you doubt my word, you'll find them all at the East Fifty-first Street Police Station."
"If that's true," Morphew rumbled, barely articulate—"if I owe that to you, Lanyard—"
"It is—you do."
"You'll settle with me, you crook—if you hide at the ends of the earth, I'll find you and break you—"