"And I think you might show a vast deal more sense," snapped Slyne. "Button up your coat, and come away out of this. You can kill yourself just as easily—a good deal more so, in fact, since I've shown you how—in half an hour, after I'm in a safer position to prove an alibi if any inconvenient questions are asked about it afterwards. Come on, now."
His whilom acquaintance followed him meekly, muttering, to a secluded corner where there was a seat.
"What's the trouble?" demanded Slyne magisterially, sitting down at one end of the bench and motioning him to the other. "But I suppose I need scarcely ask. Trust funds mysteriously melted away—the usual childish attempt to recover them by sheer chance, and with all the odds against you!—the dread of exposure and disgrace—which never worry a dead man. You've been a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing, eh, my respectable friend? And you'd rather die in the dark than face the world in broad daylight without your immaculate fleece."
Mr. Jobling groaned.
"But why, after all, finish playing the knave by playing the fool? If you were the man of the world you fancy yourself, you'd know that sheep are very seldom successful in real life. It's all very well to pose in a sheep-skin, but it isn't everything. A wolf undisguised can do very well for himself, so long as his teeth are sufficiently sharp. And, when he becomes a big millionaire, he can buy himself, among other things, a nice new merino coat."
His parable amused himself, but his auditor did not seem possessed of a sufficient sense of humour to appreciate its personal application.
"You're labouring under a misapprehension," said that gentleman, who had meantime regained some grip on himself, in accents anything but properly grateful. "I may, perhaps, have been unfortunate with—er—a few small investments for clients, but your inference that I have—er—er—You're positively insulting, sir!"
Slyne laughed, in better humour. "Bah!" said he. "What's the use of bluffing? You weren't going to blow out your brains—if any—because you had been too honest, were you?"
"I'm a desperate man," declared Mr. Jobling, thus rudely reminded of the matter in hand. "Life isn't worth living, now that I've lost—" He gulped and gasped, once more on the verge of tears, but a furtive glance at Slyne's impassive features, dimly visible in the glow of a half-smoked cigar, showed him he need not expect any excess of sympathy from that quarter. It also seemed to suggest to him, in the midst of his anguish of mind, an idea. He looked round at Slyne again.
"You're a man of wealth," he said in a husky voice whose suddenly inspired eagerness he could not conceal, and some spark of hope perhaps sprang up in his fainting heart again since Slyne did not deny that erroneous suggestion. Slyne was waiting to hear what more he might have to say, though not with any intention of helping him.