Gunning gasped, his eyes became wild. “What—who is this Nachbar?” he cried.
“You are speaking to him now,” said Clement. “Adolf Neuburg is Albrecht Nachbar—murderer.”
“A murderer!” cried Gunning. He shrank away from Neuburg, his face pale and working. “A murderer.” There was real disgust and horror in his tone. He was a real bad hat, but somehow that had touched to horror and disgust a clean streak in him. Then with a genuine anger he swung round on the big man. “Give him the lie, Adolf,” he shouted. “Fling the lie in his dirty face.”
Neuburg, or rather Nachbar, stood passive, his great face in an awful inscrutability. Only his right hand moved. It lifted, and its fingers caressed the flap of his coat pocket, caressed as if eager to get at something that lay in that pocket. Only when Gunning shouted once more, “Go on, Adolf, fling the lie in his face,” did he say, “Stop that, Gunning. Go on, Seadon. Go on.—Don’t stop at that. Let’s have all of it.”
He wanted to find out all Clement knew. He ignored Gunning’s horror and disgust. He was, no doubt, entirely confident of his supremacy over Gunning.
Clement, conscious of the play of that eager hand over the pistol pocket, said evenly: “Gunning, for reasons of his own, for reasons connected with Heloise Reys, this man has thought best to keep you ignorant of his real nature. He is Albrecht Nachbar who is wanted by the Oregon police for murder. He is careful not to deny it.”
“God!” breathed Gunning, his eyes fixed in horror on Nachbar. “God—but you lie, he will deny it.”
“Go on,” said Nachbar with a deadly evenness. “Go on, Seadon.”
“He won’t deny it,” said Clement, shooting at venture. “He won’t deny it—because he feels that, since I have unmasked him, it will be best for you to know what he intends to do to that girl, Heloise Reys.”