“I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you. You’re in it as well. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the bat turning up, you’d have been considerably more in it than I am.”
“What!” cried O’Hara. “Where did you find it? Was it in the grounds? When was it you found it?”
Whereupon Trevor gave him a very full and exact account of what had happened. He showed him the two letters from the League, touched on Milton’s connection with the affair, traced the gradual development of his suspicions, and described with some approach to excitement the scene in Ruthven’s study, and the explanations that had followed it.
“Now do you wonder,” he concluded, “that I feel as if a few rounds with Rand-Brown would do me good.”
O’Hara breathed hard.
“My word!” he said, “I’d like to see ye kill him.”
“But,” said Trevor, “as you and Clowes have been pointing out to me, if there’s going to be a corpse, it’ll be me. However, I mean to try. Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing me a few tricks.”
“Take my advice,” said O’Hara, “and don’t try any of that foolery.”
“Why, I thought you were such a believer in science,” said Trevor in surprise.
“So I am, if you’ve enough of it. But it’s the worst thing ye can do to learn a trick or two just before a fight, if you don’t know anything about the game already. A tough, rushing fighter is ten times as good as a man who’s just begun to learn what he oughtn’t to do.”