"Personally," continued Lavirotte, "I have no desire to shoot you. You
are at perfect liberty to live. But as you were so sure a little while
ago that you were a dead man, and I was one also, it doesn't make much
difference who pulls the trigger. Yet I think, before we take our
final leave of the world, it would be just as well we had a quiet
little chat."
"You don't mean to say," cried James O'Donnell, "that you would murder
me in cold blood?"
"How can I murder you in cold blood, or in heat, since you say you are
already dead? When a man is dead to the law, as in the case of a man
sentenced to death, no one ever thinks of calling the hangman's office
that of a murderer. Viewing your case from my point, I cannot see that
death would be any grievous harm to you. By your stupid folly you have
ruined yourself, your family, and been accessory to the ruin of
hundreds. You are old, and have no reason to hope for any great
prolongation of life. Outside your own business you never have been
remarkable for any quality which could now bring you bread. Candidly,
Mr. O'Donnell, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't die, and why I
shouldn't shoot you."
The old man was paralysed with horror, and did not speak. In the fury
of his disappointment and despair it was easy for him to think he
would come to London and kill Lavirotte and then himself, but since he
had entered that room, and Lavirotte had spoken, a change had come
over the whole aspect of affairs. He was no longer quite sure that he
would be justified, morally or humanly, in killing Lavirotte. He was
no longer quite sure that he had any grievance at all against
Lavirotte. An hour before he was quite sure. He felt fortified by ten
thousand reasons in the opinion that he was called upon to kill the
man who had attempted to kill his son, and who had led him himself
into a fool's paradise. Now the notion of death was hateful to him.
Although every penny of his fortune might be lost in the gulf of
Vernon and Son, and although his mill and other places of business
would inevitably be sold, he might be appointed manager of the
business; for no doubt it would be carried on by someone, and no one
could be so fitted to manage it as he who had created it.
The thought of his wife and his son came strongly back upon him, now
that he found himself face to face with an armed man who had owned he
was subject to fits of insanity, an armed madman towards whom he had,
a few moments ago, used the strongest language. He now felt, for the
first time, that what he had contemplated towards Lavirotte would have
been a crime, and serious doubts began to arise in his mind as to
whether his own life was in reality ended. The first shock caused by
the news Eugene gave him had now passed away, and he was able to see
with clearer vision what had been, what was, and what might be.
At last he mustered courage enough to say: "Whatever may have occurred
before, Mr. Lavirotte, supposing you were justified in your attack
upon my son, and in the promise you made to me of material help in my
great difficulty, there could not be the shadow of a justification for
your taking my life."
"I don't seek for justification," said Lavirotte. "You have no reason
to suppose I desire justification. A while ago you used the vilest
language towards me. It may suit me to take ample revenge for such
language, when I may do so with safety."
"Safety!" cried the old man; "safety! How can you talk of safety? You
told me a few minutes ago that there were other people in the house.
If you fired they would hear the shot----"
"Shot," said Lavirotte, with a sinister smile, "there are six here;"
tapping the revolver, which he held in his right, with the forefinger
of his left hand.
"Shots!" repeated the old man with a shudder. "Good God! you don't
mean to say you could shoot a man with that smile on your face!"
"That is a question quite apart from the matter we are discussing,"
said Lavirotte, smiling still more. "Yes, they would hear the shots."
"Then there are the men I saw outside watching the place. They also
would hear, and knowing that you and I were not friends----"
"How should they know we are not friends? We have been friends up to
this. Your secret designs upon my life have not been, I assume,
communicated to anyone."
"Yes, but they would come then and find me wounded, perhaps dead. They
would find you here. They would know that you have had some
unaccountable connection with the assault upon my son, were found in
the vault with the dead body of that man Crawford, and are now found
here with another injured man, and with a revolver in your hand. All
this would be strong enough, I am sure, to convince people that I had
been the victim of foul play."
"Up to a certain point, sir, I quite agree with you; and if the facts
were to be exactly as you have described them, I have no doubt
whatever that an intelligent jury would string me up. But there is a
slight difference between what you fancy would occur and what seems to
me likely to happen. I will describe to you briefly what, to my mind,
would occur. I would hold this revolver thus and pull twice, sending
one bullet through the head to insure instant insensibility, sending a
second through the cavity of the chest to secure ultimate death. Then
I would take this revolver and put it in your hand." Lavirotte held
the weapon in his right hand, and pointed at James O'Donnell's head.
With his left hand he touched the barrel as he spoke.
"For God's sake put that thing down!"
Lavirotte laughed. "You have not yet been so long under the magic
ordeal of its glance as I was a little while ago. Within a minute some
persons would be in this room. They would find me in a state of
terrible excitement. They would find me calling for help at the door
and at the window. They would find me a man absolutely distracted.
They would find you either sitting in that chair dead or dying,
or lying on the floor. They would find this revolver--your own
revolver--in your hand, or close by, where you let it fall after
committing suicide."
"Suicide!"
"They would hear from me how you received news that I could not help
you, although I had hoped to be able to do so; that you came over here
to learn from me personally if there were not some chance of my being
able to aid you, and that upon my telling you there was not, you, to
my grief and horror, put an end to yourself. You see, sir," said
Lavirotte, lowering the revolver and throwing himself back in his
chair, "your story could not be heard. Mine would be the only one
forthcoming, and on each of the six sides of the cube of my story is
the hall-mark of truth."
"But surely, Mr. Lavirotte," said the merchant, "anything I may have
said or done would not be a sufficient excuse for your committing so
terrible a crime as making away with an old man who had never done you
any serious injury. I may have said violent, unjustifiable things; I
own I have. But I said them in heat and in ignorance. You can
understand that I spoke under tremendous excitement, and in the belief
that you had, without provocation, assailed my son, and that you had,
for no reason known to me, promised me aid in my great trial and
forsaken me in the moment of peril."
"Then, sir, am I to assume that you hold me at my word, and that you
believe when I attacked your son I was suffering under extreme
excitement and not responsible for my actions?"
"I believe what you say."
"And that when I promised to help you out of the money I made certain
I was about to receive, I was sincere?"
"That," said the old man, with some hesitancy, "is a question I am not
yet qualified to answer."
"Will you, sir, say that you are now as open to believe I was in good
faith when I promised to help you as you were to believe I had
committed an unprovoked assault upon your son when you came in here?"
"I see no reason why I should not say so."
"Then, sir, we may take it that we have arrived at the end of what
might have been a fatal talk. Let us put an end to any further chances
of fatality thus."
He cocked the revolver, placed the butt of the weapon on the floor,
held the barrel in his left hand, and placing the heel of his right
foot on the hammer, he tore it out from its place, and flung the
weapon on the table, saying: "Now, sir, a child may play with it in
safety."
The old man rose up in supreme relief, and said: "I have often thought
hard things of you. I shall never think them again. When I came in I
believed I had matters all my own way, and that I should shoot you
like a dog. I had the merciless intention of shooting you as you were.
You then got the upper hand of me and had me at your mercy. I cannot
now but believe all you have told me. Will you shake hands?"
"Very gladly indeed," said Lavirotte, with the tears in his eyes.
"This is one of the happiest moments of my life. Now it is only fair I
should tell you upon what I grounded my hopes of being able to help
you."
Lavirotte told James O'Donnell the whole history of the treasure and
St. Prisca's Tower. When it was over, the old man said:
"Why, in the name of goodness, did you not get twenty men to dig
instead of risking both your lives in such a silly way?"
"We did not wish that anyone beyond ourselves should know. We did not
want to share our good luck with the Crown."
"There was no need to share your luck with the Crown. The law of
Treasure Trove has lately been altered."
"Good Heavens!" cried Lavirotte. "To think it is so, and that poor old
Crawford should have lived all his life and died the death he did,
without knowing this!"