'Compton!' repeated Miles in a whisper. 'The only 'trap' in Australia I ever feared—the only man in the world, bar Pound, I have still to fear! Compton! my bitterest enemy!'
Edmonstone rose from the armchair in which he had been sitting, sat down at the table, opened a blotter, and found a sheet of notepaper.
'Must you answer now?' cried Miles.
'Yes; on the spot.'
'What do you mean to say?'
'I have not decided. What would you say in my place? I am a poor liar.'
'If we changed places, and I had treated you as you have treated me these two days—since our compact—I should write them the worst, and have done with it,' said Miles, in a low tone of intense bitterness. 'You professed to trust me. Yet you won't trust yourself near me on the moors; you fear foul play at my hands. You watch me like a lynx here at the house; yet I swear man never kept promise as I am keeping mine now! You do things by halves, Edmonstone. You had better end the farce, and wire the truth to your friend.'
Reproach mingled with resignation in the last quiet words. Edmonstone experienced a twinge of compunction.
'Nonsense!' he said. 'I should be a fool if I didn't watch you—worse than a fool to trust you. But betraying you is another matter. I don't think of doing that, unless——'
'I can keep my word, Edmonstone, bad as I may be! Besides, I am not a fool.'
'And you are going on Monday?'
'Yes—to sail on Tuesday; you have seen my ticket.'
'Then you shall see my answer to this letter.'
Dick then dashed off a few lines. He handed the sheet, with the ink still wet, to Miles, who read these words:'Dear Biggs,—A false scent, I am afraid. Ladies are never accurate; you have been misinformed about Miles. I knew him in Australia! He cannot be the man you want.—Yours sincerely,'R. Edmonstone.'
The sheet of writing paper fluttered in Miles's hand. For one moment an emotion of gratitude as fierce as that which he himself had once inspired in the breast of Edmonstone, swelled within his own.
'You are a friend indeed,' he murmured, handing back the letter. 'And yet your friendship seems like madness!'
'My old mate swears that I am mad on the subject!'
Dick folded and enclosed his note in an envelope, directed it, and got up to go. Miles followed him to the door and wrung his hand in silence.
When the door was closed upon Edmonstone, Miles sank into the armchair, and closed his eyes.
His expression was human then; it quickly hardened, and his face underwent complete transformation. A moment later it was not a pleasant face to look upon. The ugliness of crime had disfigured it in a flash. The devils within him were unchained for once, and his looks were as ugly as his thoughts.
'Curse it!'—he was thinking—'I must be losing my nerve: I get heated and flurried as I never did before. Yet it was not altogether put on, my gratitude to this young fellow: I do feel some of it. Nor were they all lies that I told him the other night; I am altered in some ways. I believe it was that spice of truth that saved me—for saved I am so far as he is concerned. Anyway, I have fooled him rather successfully, and he'll know it before he has done with me! True, I did not bargain to meet him here, after what the Colonel wrote; but I flatter myself I made the best of it—I can congratulate myself upon every step. No; one was a false step: I was an idiot to show him the passage-money receipt; it was telling him the name and line of the steamer and opening up the track for pursuit when we are gone. And yet, and yet—I could not have laid a cleverer false scent if I had tried! Instead of money flung away, that passage-money will turn out a glorious investment; we'll show a clean pair of heels in the opposite direction, while our good friends here think of nothing but that one steamer! And so, once more, everything is turning out well, if only I can keep this up three days longer; if only Jem Pound and Frank Compton do not trouble me; if only—if only I am not mistaken and misled as to the ease with which I may carry off—my prize!'
And strange to say, as he thought of that final coup, the villainy faded out of his face—though the act contemplated was bad enough, in all conscience!
All at once a creaking noise startled Miles. He rose from his chair, and crossed with swift noiseless steps over to the window. A man was lifting himself gingerly from the basket-work chair—the man was Philip Robson.
Miles leant out of the window, seized him by the collar, and drew him backward with a thud against the wall below the window.
'Eavesdropper! listener!' hissed Miles; and quick as lightning he changed his hold from the doctor's collar to the doctor's wrists, which he grabbed with each iron hand and drew upward over the sill.
The sill was more than six feet from the ground. The doctor stood on tiptoe—helpless—in a trap. The doctor's face was white and guilty. The doctor's tongue was for the moment useless.
'What were you doing there?' Miles demanded quietly, but with a nasty look about the eyes.
'I—I had been asleep. I came back early from the moors because Edmonstone insulted me. I was just awake. Let go my hands, will you? I heard something—a very little—I could not help it. What do you mean by holding my wrists like this? Leave loose of them, I say!'
'Then tell me what you heard.'
'Something that I could not understand. If you don't let me go this instant, I'll sing out!'
'Will you stand and talk sensibly, and listen to what I tell you?'
'Yes, I swear I will.'
