"You understood aright."
"Who sent him?" demanded Vincent, abruptly—for there were strange fancies and still darker suspicions flying through his head.
But Courtnay Fox smiled.
"George Morris, you may have heard, was not born yesterday. His business is to get out of you what he can, and to take care you get nothing out of him. It was not likely he would tell me why he came making these inquiries—even if I had cared to ask, which I did not."
"You told him all you knew, of course, about Mr. Bethune?" Vincent went on, with a certain cold austerity.
"I did."
"And how much more?"
"Ah, very good—very neat," the spacious-waisted journalist exclaimed with a noisy laugh. "Very good indeed. But look here, Mr. Harris, if the great solicitor was not born yesterday, you were—in a way; and so I venture to ask you why you should take such an interest in Mr. Bethune's affairs?"
Vincent answered him without flinching.
"Because, amongst other things, certain lies have been put in circulation about Mr. Bethune, and I wished to know where they arose. Now I am beginning to guess."