“But only yesterday you told me that you don’t want a farthing of old Statham’s money.”
“Nor do I. His money has a curse upon it—the money filched from the pockets of widows and orphans, money that has been obtained by fraud and misrepresentation,” cried Adams. “To-day he is respected and lauded on account of his pious air and his philanthropy; yet yesterday he floated rotten concerns and coolly placed hundreds of thousands in his pocket by reason of the glowing promises that he never fulfilled. No!” cried the man, clenching his strong, hard fist; “I don’t want a single penny of his money. You, Lyle, may have what you want of it—thirty thousand to be the minimum.”
“You talk as though you contemplated handling his fortune,” the other remarked, in some surprise.
“When I reveal to him my intentions, his banking account will be at my disposal, depend upon it,” Adams said. “But I don’t want any of his bribes. I shall refuse them. I will have my revenge. It shall be an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. He showed me no mercy—and I will show him none—none. But it is Max Barclay who will assist me towards that end, and the girl at Cunnington’s, Marion Rolfe, who must be made the catspaw.”
Lyle remained thoughtful, his eyes upon the carpet.
“Yes,” he said, slowly, at last. “I quite follow you and divine your intentions. But, remember she’s a woman. Is it just—is it human?”
“Human!” echoed the cosmopolitan, removing his cigarette as he shrugged his shoulders with a nonchalant air. “To me it matters nothing, so long as I attain my object. Surely you are not chicken-hearted enough to be moved by a woman’s tears.”
“I don’t understand you,” his friend declared.
“No; I suppose you don’t,” he answered. “And, to be frank with you, Lyle, I don’t intend at this moment that you shall. My intention is my own affair. I merely foreshadow to you the importation into the affair of a woman who will, through no fault of her own, be compelled to suffer in order to allow me to achieve the object I have in view.”
The hunchback turned slightly towards the curtained window. He moved quickly in order to conceal an expression upon his face, which, had it been detected by his companion, the startling and amazing events recorded in the following chapters would surely never have occurred.