Clement acted quickly. From his pocket he took a piece of paper, unfolded it and put it on the table. He found that ink and pens were already there and he put the paper near them. It was a confession. He had drawn it up in the train coming from Banff. It set out the general lines of the plot as Clement saw it. And he meant Henry Gunning to sign it. It would frighten Gunning into fleeing the country, as well as an argument to use when he put the case before Heloise Reys.
He took a step to the bedside. The man under the blankets moved. It might have been merely the tossing of a sick body, it might have been anxiety. Clement looked down at the face, saw its looseness, its weakness, its degeneration; saw, too, in the outline of good looks how such a face might carry a fond memory right back to the time when this man was a fine, upstanding, clean-looking boy. Oh, yes, that face would call up memories that might well obliterate the present.
He said harshly, “Up with you, Henry Gunning. You’re found out. The game’s up.”
The man on the bed moaned and stirred. And he made a false move. He muttered, “Heloise.”
Clement saw red. “Up, you skunk!” he snapped. His hand went down, plucking at the blankets. With a twist they were on the floor. Henry Gunning, with one ineffectual grab at the disappearing clothes, lay looking up at Clement, his eyes full of fear, his mouth loose. He had reason for fear. He lay on the bed with his nightshirt on him, but beneath that were all his clothes (save the boots) he had worn but a few minutes ago as he sat a healthy man reading his newspaper on the porch of the shack.
Clement shifted his pistol to his left hand. “Do you get up yourself?” he snapped.
Gunning shakily got up. “Who th’ hell are you?” he demanded thickly.
“An Englishman like yourself, but a cleaner one,” said Clement with a strong sense of racial anger.
And at the name Gunning winced. But he pulled his wits, which were obviously fuddled, together and he stuttered, “What th’ hell do you mean by all this? Hey, what the hell——? Look here, I’ll have the law on you.”
“The law,” Clement sprang on him. “The law is over there”—he indicated Gatineau. “That is a detective come to settle with you, my friend.”