“‘Phil, I got tired waiting for you and went out 289 three-quarters of an hour ago,’ he replied. ‘I went over the fields to the village. I didn’t mean any wrong then. I had no thought of it. I went the back way toward the bank. The back door was open and I looked in. The banker was figuring. There was money––stacks of it. The sight of the damned stuff made me crazy. I had little hope of you getting yours. It seemed an easy way. Something gripped me and I saw nothing after that but the money. There was no one about. I crept in, and under that counter that lifts up. He never saw or heard me. I picked up something––a poker, a ruler maybe. God only knows what it was! I hit him over the head with it. It didn’t drop him. I had to hit him again and again. Then blood spurted. He fell on the floor. I grabbed as much money as I thought I needed and I came away hoping to get out from here before you got back. I was just writing to you now to tell you what I had done. I put it in the old cipher we made up together at school. I knew you’d fathom it and understand. It is on the table there.
“‘Now you’ve come back,’ he continued. ‘They’ll be after me. What am I to do, Phil? It’ll break the dad’s and mother’s hearts if the police get me for this. Honest, Phil!––I didn’t mean to. I can’t think right. You tell me what to do. You fix it up and get me away from here.’
“He was on the point of breaking down again, Jim, when I brought him up with a jerk.
“‘I can help any man but a murderer,’ I said. ‘You didn’t kill Maguire?’
“‘No, no! I swear it,’ he answered. ‘The knocks I gave him could not kill him.’
“‘Well, if he dies, Graham, I’ll have to tell. If he doesn’t, you can bank on me. Your folks have been too good to me for me to forget and we’ve been too good 290 friends for me to give you away. Does anybody know you are in Carnaby?’ I asked further.
“‘Not a soul,’ he said.
“‘Has anyone seen you here?’
“‘Not that I know of!’
“‘Quick then,’ I cried. ‘Take this money Angus Macdonald sent. It’s ours. There are five hundred dollars. That’s all you need to meet your present obligations. Leave the blood money where it is. I’ll put it in an envelope and some time late to-night I’ll drop it, unaddressed, into the bank letter-box. They’ll never guess what has happened, and, if Maguire recovers and they get their money back, no one––no one but you, Graham––will be any the worse for it.’