“Wrong enough,” Margate said, with asperity. “We are up against it, Busby, good and strong.”
“Up against what?”
“Suspicion.”
“Suspicion!” Busby lurched forward in his chair. “Not—not Nick Carter?”
“That’s what.”
“But you told me yesterday——”
“What I told you yesterday cuts no ice, Busby, in view of what I have overheard to-night,” Margate curtly interrupted.
“What d’ye mean?”
“I mean that I’ve been buncoed by the infernal sleuth. He has served me one of his devilish tricks. He pretended to swallow all that I handed him three nights ago, and I was fool enough to believe him. Luckily, however, I got wise to-night without his suspecting it. I’ll pay him off with his own coin. I’ll queer his present game, in spite of his scurvy ruse, and hand him goods of another color.”
Busby’s parchment-hued face had taken on a look of apprehension and anxiety, while that of his wife lost its last vestige of color.