"Well, you know the attack you made upon me at Brussels, for the convenient purpose of getting buried along with your victim a certain little piece of dirty paper I have in my pocket, whereby you became bound to pay to me a thousand florins which I lent you, on the faith of one I took for a gentleman."
"The scar I deny," he replied, unblushingly; "and as for the bit of paper, if you can find any one in these parts who can prove that the signature thereto was written by this hand belonging to this person now sitting before you, you will accomplish something more wonderful than finding me out here." And he laughed in his old boisterous way.
"The more difficult, I daresay," replied I, as I fixed a pretty inquisitive gaze on him, "that you have a duplicate to your real name of Charles Rogers."
"'Tis a lie!" he exclaimed. "My father was—was—yes—an artist in Bologna—the cleverest magician in Italy."
"And that is the reason," said I calmly, "that your brother the doctor works his tricks so cleverly at the Moated Grange."
Subtle officers accomplish much by attacks of surprise—going home with a fact known to the criminal to be true, but supposed by him to be unknown to all the world besides. I had acted on this principle, and the effect was singular. His tongue, which had laid in a stock of nervous fluid for roaring like a steam-boiler a little opened, was palsied. He turned on me a blank look; then, directing his eye to the woman, "You infernal hag," he exclaimed, "all this comes from you!"
"I deny it," said the woman, as she left his side and came round to mine. "But I now know, what I always suspected, that you are a villain. Sir," she continued, "this man, and his brother Dr. Rogers, prevailed upon me to give them a paper, to enable them to get out of Colonel Graeme the money he won from my husband. I believe they have got it, and that they are keeping it from me."
"They have not got it," said I, "and never will. The money is yours, and will be paid to you, if to any."
"Thank God!" she exclaimed. "No good could come out of the designs of this man and his brother. They made it up to terrify the colonel"——
A look from the man stopped her; but the broken sentence was to me a volume. They sat and looked lightnings at each other; and I contented myself with thinking, that when a rotten tree splits, bears catch honey.