All this passed through Heyst’s mind in a flash, as men think in moments of danger. He looked speculatively at Mr. Jones, who, of course, had never for a moment taken his eyes from his intended victim. And the conviction came to Heyst that this outlaw from the higher spheres was an absolutely hard and pitiless scoundrel.
Mr. Jones’s voice made him start.
“It would be useless, for instance, to tell me that your Chinaman has run off with your money. A man living alone with a Chinaman on an island takes care to conceal property of that kind so well that the devil himself—”
“Certainly,” Heyst muttered.
Again, with his left hand, Mr. Jones mopped his frontal bone, his stalk-like neck, his razor jaws, his fleshless chin. Again his voice faltered and his aspect became still more gruesomely malevolent, as of a wicked and pitiless corpse.
“I see what you mean,” he cried, “but you mustn’t put too much trust in your ingenuity. You don’t strike me as a very ingenious person, Mr. Heyst. Neither am I. My talents lie another way. But Martin—”
“Who is now engaged in rifling my desk,” interjected Heyst.
“I don’t think so. What I was going to say is that Martin is much cleverer than a Chinaman. Do you believe in racial superiority, Mr. Heyst? I do, firmly. Martin is great at ferreting out such secrets as yours, for instance.”
“Secrets like mine!” repeated Heyst bitterly. “Well, I wish him joy of all he can ferret out!”
“That’s very kind of you,” remarked Mr. Jones. He was beginning to be anxious for Martin’s return. Of iron self-possession at the gaming-table, fearless in a sudden affray, he found that this rather special kind of work was telling on his nerves. “Keep still as you are!” he cried sharply.
“I’ve told you I am not armed,” said Heyst, folding his arms on his breast.
“I am really inclined to believe that you are not,” admitted Mr. Jones seriously. “Strange!” he mused aloud, the caverns of his eyes turned upon Heyst. Then briskly: “But my object is to keep you in this room. Don’t provoke me, by some unguarded movement, to smash your knee or do something definite of that sort.” He passed his tongue over his lips, which were dry and black, while his forehead glistened with moisture. “I don’t know if it wouldn’t be better to do it at once!”
“He who deliberates is lost,” said Heyst with grave mockery.
Mr. Jones disregarded the remark. He had the air of communing with himself.
“Physically I am no match for you,” he said slowly, his black gaze fixed upon the man sitting on the end of the bed. “You could spring—”
“Are you trying to frighten yourself?” asked Heyst abruptly. “You don’t seem to have quite enough pluck for your business. Why don’t you do it at once?”
Mr. Jones, taking violent offence, snorted like a savage skeleton.
“Strange as it may seem to you, it is because of my origin, my breeding, my traditions, my early associations, and suchlike trifles. Not everybody can divest himself of the prejudices of a gentleman as easily as you have done, Mr. Heyst. But don’t worry about my pluck. If you were to make a clean spring at me, you would receive in mid air, so to speak, something that would make you perfectly harmless by the time you landed. No, don’t misapprehend us, Mr. Heyst. We are—er—adequate bandits; and we are after the fruit of your labours as a—er—successful swindler. It’s the way of the world—gorge and disgorge!”
He leaned wearily the back of his head against the wall. His vitality seemed exhausted. Even his sunken eyelids drooped within the bony sockets. Only his thin, waspish, beautifully pencilled eyebrows, drawn together a little, suggested the will and the power to sting—something vicious, unconquerable, and deadly.
“Fruits! Swindler!” repeated Heyst, without heat, almost without contempt. “You are giving yourself no end of trouble, you and your faithful henchman, to crack an empty nut. There are no fruits here, as you imagine. There are a few sovereigns, which you may have if you like; and since you have called yourself a bandit—”
“Yaas!” drawled Mr. Jones. “That, rather than a swindler. Open warfare at least!”
“Very good! Only let me tell you that there were never in the world two more deluded bandits—never!”
Heyst uttered these words with such energy that Mr. Jones, stiffening up, seemed to become thinner and taller in his metallic blue dressing-gown against the whitewashed wall.
“Fooled by a silly, rascally innkeeper!” Heyst went on. “Talked over like a pair of children with a promise of sweets!”
“I didn’t talk with that disgusting animal,” muttered Mr. Jones sullenly; “but he convinced Martin, who is no fool.”
“I should think he wanted very much to be convinced,” said Heyst, with the courteous intonation so well known in the islands. “I don’t want to disturb your touching trust in your—your follower, but he must be the most credulous brigand in existence. What do you imagine? If the story of my riches were ever so true, do you think Schomberg would have imparted it to you from sheer altruism? Is that the way of the world, Mr. Jones?”
For a moment the lower jaw of Ricardo’s gentleman dropped; but it came up with a snap of scorn, and he said with spectral intensity:
“The beast is cowardly! He was frightened, and wanted to get rid of us, if you want to know, Mr. Heyst. I don’t know that the material inducement was so very great, but I was bored, and we decided to accept the bribe. I don’t regret it. All my life I have been seeking new impressions, and you have turned out to be something quite out of the common. Martin, of course, looks to the material results. He’s simple—and faithful—and wonderfully acute.”
“Ah, yes! He’s on the track”—and now Heyst’s speech had the character of politely grim raillery—“but not sufficiently on the track, as yet, to make it
