"Did you murder my father?" he asked, his voice shaking.
For a second the other stared at him blankly.
"Certainly not!" he cried indignantly. "All I have to do is place the card! I engaged an old sailor, or something of the kind, to dispatch your father. I indicate. Fate destroys."
Then he leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DEATH OF THE CURSE
Jim Harley's face twisted and stiffened like a grotesque and hideous mask; his honest eyes narrowed and reddened; for a little while he stood there, motionless as a figure of wood; then his tongue flickered out and moistened his dry lips, and the fingers of his big hands opened and closed several times. The strong fingers closed so desperately that the nails furrowed the skin of his palms and came away with a stain of red.
"Damn you!" he cried, in a voice so terrible and unnatural that it startled his hearers like a gun-shot in the small room. "Damn you, you accursed murderer! You tell me that you murdered my father—and you sit there and laugh. You devil! I'll kill you where you sit—with my empty hands."
He sprang forward; but Banks threw out an arm like iron and grappled with him in the nick of time. Of the others Rayton alone moved to help in the protection of the old man who sat laughing in the chair. Dr. Nash looked on with interest, Dick Goodine folded his arms and Fletcher snarled, "Kill the old devil. Crazy or sane, he stinks to Heaven an' cumbers the earth."