"Do you want to keep your clever new friend there company in his cell? How long do you think you'd be left at liberty if I mentioned to the authorities that you're the same man who—"
"Stop, now, curse you!" roared Captain Dove and so drowned the disclosures which Slyne seemed minded to make. "And don't go too far with me, or—"
Slyne looked without winking into the muzzle of the revolver which the old man had produced in an instant and levelled at him. "You talk to me about bluffing!" he said again, and laughed, without mirth. "You'd be better occupied, Dove, in making sure that your own bluff isn't called. You've done your best for a week past to give yourself away to the police, and—if you manage that in the end, you won't have me to blame, remember. I'm not the sort of yellow dog you seem to want to make yourself out."
He paused, to let that vitriolic criticism sink in, and to consider just how far he might safely go. Captain Dove had laid his revolver down but kept a hand on its butt. He was watching Slyne intently.
"I wish you could get it into your head," the latter resumed a little more peaceably, "that beggar-my-neighbour isn't the easiest game to play with me. And that I've got brains enough to take care of myself.
"If you and your cute new friend there were to be put away to-morrow, I'd stay here safe and sound. I've nothing to fear.
"I've kept my bargain with you both so far, and I'm quite willing to complete it. I'm going to see, at the same time, that you keep yours with me. You'll each get your promised share of the profits here, no more and no less; and then—I'll be done with you. Till then—don't go too far with me," he finished warningly.
"To hear you talk, any one would think you owned Loquhariot already!" remarked Captain Dove. "I'd like to hear what Sallie has to say about it all now."
"I'll get her to tell you at once, if you like," Slyne answered evenly and, rising, rang the bell.
"Ask her ladyship to favour us with her company for a few minutes," he instructed the footman who answered that summons, "or if she'd prefer to receive us in her own room." Then he lay back in his chair again, his wits busily at work. He could not feel quite sure himself what Sallie would have to say about it all now; but—he meant to master her also.