Again came the man's whispered "Hush!" and then he broke forth suddenly in an excited undertone.
"I tell you I saw him," he said in a voice which was quite unfamiliar to Cleek. "If you've got the money, all right, if not——"
He let the rest go by default, and Cleek heard a little moan of distress come from the woman. "All I've got left is here. I can't give you another penny," she cried, and Cleek heard her fumbling as in a bag.
But now he scarcely noticed her movements. Other and more startling thoughts were in his mind. A scent of jasmine was in his nostrils.
He did not need to move or see now, he knew that the unseen speaker was Jennifer Wynne, and that the boy she was trying to save was none other than the lad she had mothered and watched over—her idle young scamp of a brother. It was all as plain as a pikestaff. The lad, in the power of the tipster Blake, had seen through his disguise, and in the quarrel that must have followed had murdered him!
But with what? The prussic acid had been taken from his father's dispensary. Had he then gone prepared to kill him? Or was it not Bobby, after all, for whom Jennifer was allowing herself to be blackmailed. Could it be Sir Edgar? And who was this man who had discovered her secret, this man who was keeping back in the shadow of the bushes? What part was his in this grim tragedy of death?
It was Jennifer herself who gave the answer.
"I tell you this is the last I can give you or get from anywhere or any one," she said in a low, tense tone. "I knew you were both out for something, directly I recognized the imposture, but you must be content and leave me alone. How do I know that you didn't kill him yourself for that matter? Oh, if I only knew, if I only knew the truth, that it were not my boy!" Here her voice stopped and for a reason which made Cleek groan inwardly.
Down at the end of the path there came the sound of feet. He knew and understood what was happening, what an unkind blow Fate had dealt him.
Dollops was returning to be near his master, lest anything unforeseen should occur. There was just one little rustle like the sound of notes crackling. Then Jennifer sped forward along the path that led away from the house. The bushes crackled and snapped again, and the sound of a man's running feet echoed faintly from the other side of the hedge. Cleek was on his feet and over the window-sill like a flash. He ran down the lane openly, without so much as a look toward Dollops, struck through the ground, and cut into the meadows adjoining. Yes!—there was the figure of his quarry. Cleek bent his head and ran on.