“He is an old man; feeble, with no physical strength,” continued Graliame, laying his hand on Chewkle’s rather muscular arm.
Chewkle nodded again.
“You know where he dwells—Harleydale Manor?”
“I know it,” said Chewkle.
“He is fond of walking in the evening, Chewkle. Now an old man may drop down in a wood, and die in an apoplectic fit, or fall over some of the hanging rocks which are on the estate. There are many ways a man may seem to have died a natural death, Chewkle, my friend.”
“I knows a good many ways,” said Chewkle thoughtfully. “It isn’t that: the thing is to manage so as not to be diskivered.”
“I do not think there is much fear of that,” responded Grahame with an affected assumption of its improbability.
“P’rhaps not,” returned Chewkle, “but it’s the danger to number von as I looks at. However, I dessay I can put that right if everything else is squared to make it worth my while.”
Mr. Grahame produced a Bank of England note for fifty pounds.
“Here, my good Chewkle, is an earnest of my future intentions towards you,” he observed, with a furtive glance at the man’s somewhat excited countenance, as he placed the note in the scoundrel’s trembling fingers.