It was the very move Nick wanted to see him make.
“Lemme see ’em!” he roared furiously, half rising from his chair. “I tell you there’s suthing wrong with them cards!”
“I think not——”
“Lemme see ’em! Lemme see ’em, or I’ll——”
“Let him see them, Nate!” shrieked Belle Braddon, wild lest Godard’s frightful agitation should betray him.
Nick reached across the layout with a terrible imprecation, and snatched the pack of cards from under Godard’s quivering hand.
“There’s blood on them!” he roared fiercely, with his eyes fixed on those of the shaking man opposite. “There’s blood on them! The blood of a man killed for money—killed for gain, and by you who now——”
Nick got no further.
The thrilling accusation was more than Nate Godard, in his unnerved condition, could sustain. He saw the scheme by which he was being duped—and he saw again the staring corpse that he had left behind him in the rectory grounds in Fordham.
With a single wild cry, most like a shriek, he leaped to his feet.