“He goes down to the City sometimes. Better call there and present a false card. He won’t care to be faced in the vicinity of his managers and clerks. It will show him from the first that the great home of Statham is tottering.”
“And it shall fall!” declared Adams, with a triumphant chuckle. “We hold the trump cards, it is true. The only matter to be decided is how we shall play them.”
“They must be played very carefully, if we are to win.”
“Win?” echoed the other. “Why, man, we can’t possibly lose.”
“Suppose he died?”
“He won’t die, I’ll take care of that,” said Adams, with a fierce expression upon his somewhat evil countenance. “No; the old blackguard shall live, and his life shall be rendered a hell of terror and remorse. He made my life so bitter that a thousand times I’ve longed for death. He taunted me with my misfortunes, ruined me and laughed in my face, jeered at my unhappiness and flaunted his wealth before me when I was penniless. But through all these years I have kept silence, laughing within myself because of his ignorance that I alone held his secret, and that when I chose I could rise and crush him.
“He had no suspicion of my knowledge until one blazing day in a foreign city I betrayed myself. I was a fool, I know. But very soon afterwards I repaid the error by death. I died and was buried, so that he then believed himself safe, and has remained in self-satisfied security until this morning, when his gaze met mine through the window. I have risen from the dead,” he added, with a short, dry laugh; “risen to avenge myself by his ruin.”
“And his death,” added the hunchback.
“Don’t I tell you he shall not die?” cried Adams. “What satisfaction should I have were he to commit suicide? No; I mean to watch his agony, to terrify him and drive him to an existence constantly fearing exposure and arrest. He shall not enjoy a moment’s peace of mind, but shall be tortured by conscience and driven mad by terror. I will repay his evil actions towards me and mine a hundredfold.”
“How can you prevent him escaping you by suicide?”