“Now, sir!” said the tutor as the door closed.
The wretch made one wild effort at escape. He might have known by this time with whom he had to deal. Mr Armstrong held him by the wrist as in a vice.
“It won’t do, Ratman,” said he. “The game is up. The best thing you can do is to stand quietly here till the police come.”
The prisoner sullenly abandoned his struggle, and turned with a bitter sneer to Roger.
“So you’ve run me down, have you? You’ve found your lost brother at last? I expected it. I was a fool to suppose you would lift a finger for me. There’s some chance of escaping from an enemy, but from a brother who has set himself to hound a brother to death, never. Never mind. Your money’s safe now. Have me hung as soon as you like; the sooner the better for me.”
Roger, stupefied and stung to the quick by these taunts, winced as though he and not the speaker were the miscreant. He looked almost appealingly at his accuser, and tried to speak to justify himself, but the words refused to come.
Suddenly he seemed to detect in the prisoner’s eye some new sinister purpose.
“Take care, Armstrong; take care!” he cried, and flung himself between the two.
It was not an instant too soon. With his free hand Ratman had contrived while talking to reach unheeded a pocket, from which he suddenly whipped a pistol, and, pounding on his captor, fired.
The shot was badly and wildly aimed at the tutor’s face. Even at so short a distance it might have missed its mark altogether. Roger’s sudden intervention, however, found it an unexpected target. The lad’s up-flung hand caught the pistol at the moment it went off, and received in its palm the ball which had been intended for his friend.