“I cut the face,” he added, “so she wouldn’t come into the case if you caught me; your little Westridge must have been slaughtered at the loss of her.”
Again he touched me at an unexpected point.
Shortly after the thing had happened, Lord Westridge returned to England. He had come to visit some rich Americans, and there was a rumor that some adventure had befallen him. Nothing definite ever came to me, and I liked the man too little to inquire; all the blood from the original Glasgow solicitor would “bite a shilling.” But again I replied as though I were in his secret.
“What happened to Westridge?” I said.
The man twisted around in his chair.
“Friend,” he said, “you’ve got a head full of brains or you wouldn’t be Chief of the United States Secret Service; now answer me a question—What’s the biggest notion in the Christian Church?”
“I don’t know,” I answered him truthfully.
“Well, I know,” he went on. “It’s the notion that you’ll get what’s a-comin’ to you!”
He looked at me with a big, cynical leer.
“That’s what happened to your little Westridge—and the next time you see him he’s a-goin’ to get another jolt. He will be damned sorry that you found me. He couldn’t squeal, any place along the line, but I’ll bet a finger he didn’t let Scotland Yard forget about me.”