“You've got your courage with you,” he observed. “How long do you suppose it will be after you set foot on the streets of this town before you're arrested? How do you know I won't send for the police myself?”
“I know damned well you won't,” Dick said grimly. “Not before I'm through with you. You've chosen to interest yourself in me. I suppose you don't deny the imputation in that letter. You'll grant that I have a right to know who and what you are, and just what you are interested in.”
“Right-o,” the reporter said cheerfully, glad to get to grips; and to stop a fencing that was getting nowhere. “I'm connected with the Times-Republican, in your own fair city. I was in the theater the night Gregory recognized you. Verbum sap.”
“This Gregory is the 'G'?”
“Oh, quit it, Clark,” Bassett said, suddenly impatient. “That letter's the last proof I needed. Gregory wrote it after he'd seen David Livingstone. He wouldn't have written it if he and the old man hadn't come to an understanding. I've been to the cabin. My God, man, I've even got the parts of your clothing that wouldn't burn! You can thank Maggie Donaldson for that.”
“Donaldson,” Dick repeated. “That was it. I couldn't remember her name. The woman in the cabin. Maggie. And Jack. Jack Donaldson.”
He got up, and was apparently dizzy, for he caught at the table.
“Look here,” Bassett said, “let me give you a drink. You look all in.”
But Dick shook his head.
“No, thanks just the same. I'll ask you to be plain with me, Bassett. I am—I have become engaged to a girl, and—well, I want the story. That's all.”