"Tell you wot," said Dickey, "there's another five thousand due to-morrow on the surveyor's report."
"There is," said Verity, knowing that his guest and prospective partner alluded to the new steamer in course of construction on the Clyde.
"Well, it won't be paid."
David lifted his glass of port to hide his face. Was this the first rumbling of the tempest? Though expected hourly, he was not prepared for it. His hand trembled. He dared not put the wine to his lips.
"Wot's up now?" he asked.
"You're playin' some underhand game on me, David, an' I won't stand it," was the unhesitating reply. "You're lyin' about Iris. You've bin lyin' ever since she disappeared from Bootle. Show me 'er letters an' their envelopes, an' I'll find the money. But, of course, you can't. They don't exist. Now, own up as man to man, an' I'll see if this affair can be settled without the lawyers. You know wot it means once they take hold."
Then David set down the untasted wine and told the truth. Not all—that was not to be dreamed of. In the depths of his heart he feared Bulmer. The old man's repute for honesty was widespread. He would fling his dearest friend into prison for such a swindle as that arranged between Coke and the shipowner. But it was a positive relief to divulge everything that concerned Iris. From his pocket-book David produced her frayed letter, and Bulmer read it slowly, aloud, through eyeglasses held at a long focus.
Now, given certain definite circumstances, an honest man and a rogue will always view them differently. David had interpreted the girl's guarded phrases in the light of his villainous compact with Coke. Dickey, unaware of this disturbing element, was inwardly amazed to learn that Verity had lied so outrageously with the sole object of carrying through a commercial enterprise.
"'Tell him I shall marry him when the Andromeda returns to England from South America,'" he read. And again … "'The vessel is due back at the end of September, I believe, so Mr. Bulmer will not have long to wait.'"
If, in the first instance, David had not been swept off his feet by the magnitude of the catastrophe, if he had not commenced the series of prevarications before the letter reached him, he might have adopted the only sane course and taken Bulmer fully into his confidence. It was too late now. Explanation was useless. The only plea that occurred to him was more deadly than silence, since it was her knowledge of the contemplated crime that made Iris a stowaway. He had never guessed how that knowledge was attained and the added mystery intensified his torture.