I presume this search, swift as I endeavored to conduct it, occupied fully a half hour, every nerve strained by fear of interruption. However, I could not desist until I had handled every scrap of paper, and the result well repaid the risk. Once I heard steps above on the deck, but, so far as I knew, no one entered the outer cabin.
"I think I've got your number," I said finally, wheeling about to look at him.
"You 've got to get away first," he sneered defiantly, "and you 'll not find that so easy. My turn will come yet, you spy, and then you 'll learn how I bite."
I laughed, feeling no mercy.
"All in good time, friend; I think you have had your innings; now it's mine. So you are Charles Henley?"
He did not answer.
"The illegitimate son of Judge Henley and a negro mother. That's a clever forgery, that paper of legal adoption, I admit. Must have had legal advice for that. What did you pay the lawyers?"
He stared at me with compressed lips.
"Not ready to confess yet? Well, you will be. By the way, who was that Pierre who wrote telling you of Philip's death? Not Vonique, was it?"
"You damn white devil!" he burst forth, tortured beyond resistance. "What do you know about him? Who told you?"