“The ship’s gone without you, I hear.”
“She had to go. Ships cannot be delayed to await the convenience of one man: you must know that, Herbert.”
“How came you to do it, John?”
“To do what?” asked Jack. “To stay? It was no fault of mine. I was one of the chief witnesses, and the coroner would not release me.”
“You know what I mean. Not that. How came you to do it, I ask?”
“To do what?” repeated Jack.
“Kill Pym.”
Jack’s face took a terrible shade of pain as he looked at his brother. “I should have thought, Herbert, that you, of all people, might have judged me better than that.”
“I don’t mean to say you did it deliberately; that you meant to do it,” returned the Rector in his coldest manner. “But that was a very awkward threat of yours—that if the brokers persisted in sending Pym out with you, there’d be murder committed. Very incautious!”