“Really, Batchelor,” replied he, in his sweetest tones, “I’m afraid you hardly know what you’re saying. I don’t understand you.”
“You do,” said I, “and you understand how helpless I am to defend myself. You and Masham did your work well this morning.”
“At any rate,” retorted he, firing up, “we gave you a lesson for your impudence.”
Mr Merrett had been speaking with the detective, and did not hear this dialogue; but Mr Barnacle did, happily for me.
“Then,” he said, turning short round to Hawkesbury, “Masham was here this morning?”
Hawkesbury, thus suddenly cornered, turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put off in that way.
“Then he was here this morning?” he demanded again.
Hawkesbury had no retreat, and he saw it.
“He just called in for a moment,” he said, sullenly; “that’s all.”
“Oh,” said Mr Barnacle, “you can go to your desk, Hawkesbury, for the present.”