“Don’t, boy; don’t!” Riles managed to exclaim. “It isn’t true. I never harmed him.”
Wilfred’s mind seemed to be acting by telepathy rather than from his own initiative. Afterwards he could not guess what put the words in his mouth.
“Yuh never ’armed ’im, didn’t yuh? Well, w’ere is ’e? W’ere is ’e, ’Iram Riles? That’s wot people are haskin’, an’ they’re thinkin’ o’ you w’en they hask it. W’ere is ’e?”
“I don’t know, Wilfred”—he had never called him Wilfred before—“I don’t know where he is. I didn’t touch him. I tell yuh it never struck him, do yuh hear?”
“Ho, oh, then you missed ’im! By ’ow much? Tell me, ’Iram Riles. ’Ow much? A foot?”
The man had drawn himself into a half sitting posture, his back against the wall, his body half through the trap door, his arms outstretched upon the floor. His fingers trembled, and his lips twitched as he tried to speak. He was a poor ghost of the strong man Wilfred had always known.
“Listen, boy,” he said at length. “I figured on fixin’ him, but I didn’t. I waited for him to come out of the store, and I threw it at him, but in the darkness I missed.”
“Han’ then yuh went in hand robbed the syfe,” completed Wilfred.
“You lie!” shouted Riles, suddenly regaining his self-possession. “It’s all lies! What I told you was a lie! You hear me?”
He had risen on to his feet, and, with arms outstretched, was slowly approaching the boy. Wilfred read the change, and saw that the man who had narrowly escaped committing murder was still capable of it. But the lad had long been accustomed to protect himself, and his cunning did not desert him at the critical moment. Quick as a flash he seized the burning lantern and hurled it in the face of his assailant. For an instant all was darkness; then a tongue of flame shot across the floor and leapt up the oil-saturated night garments of Riles. With a scream the man, now a blazing torch, plunged down the opening to the floor below and rushed into the outer air. His wife, awakened by Wilfred’s shriek a few moments before, showed her presence of mind by wrapping Riles in a blanket, which extinguished the blaze before he was seriously injured. Wilfred took the opportunity to steal silently out of the building. Riles was swearing terribly as the boy slipped by the corner and disappeared in the darkness.