“Ah! You’ve been trying to seek solution of the mystery for yourself. I know all about that!” He laughed hollowly. “But, as you are aware of only half the tangled skein of mysterious facts, it is hardly likely that you’ll succeed, do you think? Did I not tell you to remain silent and inactive? Instead of that, you’ve been chattering and trying to act the part of amateur detective. It was fatal. Because of that—and for that reason alone—the misfortune has been placed upon you.”
“What misfortune?”
“The loss of your wife. It has occupied your mind in another way, just as it was intended by your enemies it should do.”
“And yours is the master mind, Mr Kirk, which has planned this subtle revenge,” I exclaimed, my eager hands clenched in frantic desperation. “Because I disobeyed your extraordinary injunctions Mabel has been taken from me. You may as well admit the whole truth now at once.”
“I admit nothing,” he answered, drawing himself up defiantly.
“Then, by Heaven, I’ll force you to speak—to tell me where she is!” I shouted, as I raised my hands with a sudden movement. And then, before he could ward me off, my fingers closed upon his hard, bony throat.
I was desperate. Nay, in the presence of that sphinx-like, taciturn adventurer whom I now knew to be my enemy, I was mad.
Yes, mad, or surely I would never have dared to lay hands upon him.