His eyes sparkled. He looked almost threateningly at the man whom he addressed. Boyson met his gaze quietly.
"I didn't believe it."
There was a pause. Then Roger sprang suddenly to his feet, confronting the men round him.
"Look here!" he said impatiently. "I want some money at once—and a good lot of it." He brought his fist down heavily on the mantelpiece. "There's this place of my uncle's, and I'm dashed if I can get a penny out of it! I went to his solicitors this morning. They drove me mad with their red-tape nonsense. It will take some time, they say, to get a mortgage on it, and meanwhile they don't seem inclined to advance me anything, or a hundred or two, perhaps. What's that? I lost my temper, and next time I go they'll turn me out, I dare say. But there's the truth. It's money I want, and if you can't help me to money it's no use talking."
"And when you get the money what'll you do with it?" asked Penrose.
"Pay half a dozen people who can be trusted to help me kidnap Beatty and smuggle her over the Canadian frontier. I bungled the thing once. I don't mean to bungle it again."
The answer was given slowly, without any bravado, but whatever energy of life there was in the speaker had gone into it.
"And there is no other way?" French's voice from the back was troubled.
"Ask him?" Roger pointed to Boyson.
"Is there any legal way, Boyson, in which I can recover the custody and companionship of my child?"