“You’re a fool!” declared the other, turning from him impatiently.
“Of course. I’m a fool for not falling into the very clever trap which Sir Felix Challas and his sharp ‘cat’s-paw’, Jim Jannaway, have laid for me,” he answered, looking the fellow straight in the face.
“Bah! All this quarrel arises over a girl—a little chit of a girl who, after all, hasn’t much of a reputation to lose.”
“And to whom do you refer, pray?” asked Charlie, indignantly.
“To Griffin’s girl, of course—the girl who was with you so long in these chambers, and whom you pretended to regard with such paternal care,” he sneered.
“You cast a slur upon the poor girl who was your victim!” cried the red-haired man angrily.
“I cast no slur. I speak the truth.”
“Then you’re an accursed liar!” cried Mullet, angrily. “Having failed to entrap her, you come here to-night to try and have me! But your ruse is a little bit too thin! Let the police come and learn from me the truth concerning our beautiful Birthday Baronet! I’ll welcome them. So first go back with my compliments to Berkeley Square.”
“Then your intention, now you’re in danger, is to give us away—eh?” exclaimed Jannaway, now flushed and excited. And in a second he had snatched up a heavy bronze ornament from the mantelshelf, intending to bring it down upon the other’s head with a blow that must have crushed him.
In an instant, however, Mullet was on his guard. He was not a man to be taken by surprise.