“Did you ring, signore?”
“No!” I cried, rising angrily, “Mr Kirk did not ring. I suppose you’ve been listening outside—eh? You are one of the accomplices in the murder of your master—and by Heaven, you shall pay for it! If Scotland Yard will not help me, then I’ll take the law into my own hands and give the public an illustration of the red-tape and the uselessness of the police!”
“The signore is a little excited!” was the man’s quiet remark to Kirk.
“Excited, by Heaven!” I cried. “I’ll be fooled no longer by any of you—band of assassins that you are! You ask me to believe that black is white, and tell me that my own eyes deceive me. But I’ll be even with you yet—mark me!”
“Pray calm yourself, Holford,” said Kirk, shifting his position slightly and still leaning easily against the table, “No good can be served by recrimination.”
The man’s cunning was unequalled; his ingenuity almost superhuman. Once I had held him in awe, but now, knowing the truth, that I held information which it was his earnest desire to suppress, I felt triumphant.
“I admit,” he said, still speaking calmly, as Antonio disappeared and shut the door—“I admit that there are certain ugly facts—very ugly facts which are difficult to forget, but is it not better to be merciful to the innocent and living than to revenge the dead?”
“You desire to seal my lips, my dear sir,” I said. “Why don’t you speak quite plainly?”
“Yes,” he admitted, “I make that appeal to you because—well, for several very strong reasons—Ethelwynn’s future being one.”
“And what, pray, need I care for that girl’s future, now that mine has been wrecked by the devilish machinations of you and your gang?” I cried in bitter anger.