The first three lines were enough for Chewkle. He slapped his thigh, and with an oath exclaimed—
“Brimstone’s got the best o’ me!”
“Explain,” said Mr. Grahame anxiously. But Mr. Chewkle could not explain—his double-faced roguery prevented him doing that. He evaded the question by saying—
“Never mind that now; I’ll explain how he’s done me at the proper time.”
He saw at once that Nathan Gomer had extracted from him, in some way, a clue to Josh Maybee, and had honoured him—Chewkle—with a commission to get him out of the way while he obtained possession of the prize.
Possession! He paused at the word. The Queen’s prison had possession of Maybee. Nathan Gomer, with all his cunning and artifice, he believed could not juggle him out of that place, for he had been incarcerated at the order of the Court of Chancery; and he knew that the detainer at the gate was not to be paid off. A long and tedious process in Chancery, he believed, must be gone through before the release of Maybee could be effected.
“Old sulphur phiz couldn’t get him out of there,” he soliloquised, “though he might have been able to get ’old of ’im and gammon a good deal out of ’im. It may not be altogether too late now; Maybee has a weakness for beer, and I knows what to drop in his pewter, to keep him from going into any Court o’ law—anywhere but to six foot by ten of clay.”
Mr. Grahame bent his gaze firmly upon Chewkle’s light gray eyes. He contracted his brows, and spoke only in whispers, but they were painfully audible, and had a strange, harsh sound which was disagreeable and discordant, even to the not oyer-refined ear of Mr. Chewkle.
“Why,” he said, “waste time over the poor wretch in prison? Let him live on; he has given up the documents, his presence in Court will be but of secondary importance. Now my bold and skilful friend Chewkle, if the principal dies—if Wilton was to be found dead—I—as I have before intimated to you—become, beyond all dispute, possessor of the property. Do you not understand?”
Chewkle gave a nod.