“It’ll have to do, anyway,” he muttered, and again the pen flew: “I’m not much of a hand at writing letters, as you know, but you must try and read between the lines, and guess at all I would say were we together ... All I will say to you when we meet again.”
That last sentence was rather neat, Micky thought with pride, then a wave of compunction swept through his heart as he remembered the tragedy behind it all, and he finished the page soberly enough: “Ever yours, Raymond Ashton.”
“Damn him!” said Micky under his breath, as he blotted the signature; then he took two ten-pound notes from a drawer in his desk, and, enclosing them in the envelope, sealed and stamped it.
It was half-past one, but Micky climbed into his coat again. He locked Ashton’s letter into his desk, and, taking the one he had written, went quietly down to the street.
The world was sleeping and deserted, and Micky’s footsteps echoed hollowly along the pavement.
“You’re a fool, you know!” he told himself, with a sort of humour. “You’re a bally fool, my boy! It won’t end here, you see if it does.”
But he went on to the pillar-box at the street corner.
When he reached it he stood for a moment with the letter in his hand.
“You’re a fool,” he told himself again hardily. “Micky, my boy, you’re a bally idiot, interfering with what doesn’t concern you––with what doesn’t concern you in the very least.”