When he closed his eyes he could see a shadowy form wavering helplessly in green depths. Never before were his hands smeared with blood. He had touched every crime save murder.
Physically, he was a coward. In plotting the attack on Philip, he had taxed his ingenuity for weeks to discover some means where he need not become Mason's actual helper. He rejected project after project. The thing might be bungled, so he must attend to each part of the undertaking himself, short of using a bludgeon.
He slept again and dreamed of long flights through space pursued by demons. How he longed for day. How slowly the hours passed after dawn, until the newspapers were obtainable, with their columns of emptiness for him.
A letter came from Evelyn. It was a trifle reserved, with an impulse to tears concealed in it.
"I asked mother for fifty pounds," she wrote, "so the Blue Atom incident has ended, but I don't think I will ever understand the mood in which you wrote your last telegram. Perhaps your letter now in the post—I half expected it at mid-day—will explain matters somewhat."
He consigned Blue Atom to a sultry clime, and began to ask himself why Mr. Abingdon had not written. The ex-magistrate's reticence annoyed him. A letter, even remonstrating with him, would be grateful. This silence was irritating; it savored of doubt, and doubt was the one phase of thought he wished to keep out of Mr. Abingdon's mind at that moment.
As for Evelyn, she mistrusted even his telegrams, while a bank had accepted his signature without reservation. He would punish her with zest. Philip Anson's memory would be poisoned in her heart long before she realized that he was dead.