He looked savage and dangerous. They passed into the parlour. There were glasses on the table, and De Rothan took a spirit bottle from an oak cupboard, and mixed Jerome a stiff glass of grog.
"Sit down, man. What has happened? Why didn't you come to the quarry?"
"I came there right enough."
"So——!"
"Yes, to be knocked on the head and have the cipher stolen."
De Rothan's figure stiffened like a sword that has been bent against the floor, and is allowed to spring back into shape.
"You have lost the dispatches!"
"I say they were taken from me."
"By whom?"
"That fellow whom Mees Nance was kind to at Stonehanger, that Jasper Benham."