"The pair of you are in it. You know that well enough--and the reward
is five hundred, to say nothing of what the police are offering."
"You mean to have that reward, Britten."
"If I can get it fairly, yes."
"As good as to say you'll walk straight out of here and give me up?"
"Unless you can tell me you didn't do it."
He swung round on his heel and looked at me as savage as a devil out of
hell.
"I did it, Britten--Barney, my mate, had nothing to do with it. Didn't
you see him sweat the night you picked us up? Barney's a tender-foot
at this game; he'll never cut a figure in the 'Calendar,' why, not if
he lives to be a chimpanzee in the human menagerie. Barney ought to be
holding forth in the tabernacle round the corner. Him do it--why, he
couldn't kill a calf."
Well, I think I sat back and shuddered at this; anyway, an awful
feeling of horror came upon me, both at the man's word and at the
thought of my lonely situation, and of what must come afterwards. All
the calculations seemed against me. I am a strong man, and would have
stood up to this Yankee, fist to fist, for any sum you care to name;
but the pistol in his pocket, and the certainty that he would use it
upon any provocation, held me to my seat as though I were glued there.
And thus for five whole minutes, an eternity of time to me, I watched
him pace up and down the room, gloating upon his horrid work, and
wondering when my turn would come.
"Britten," he said presently--and his voice had changed, I
thought--"Britten, would you like a whisky and soda?"
"If it's only whisky and soda----"
"What! You think I'm going to doctor it--same as I did Mabel's?"
"I don't know to what you refer--but something of the kind was in my
head."
It amused him finely--and I must say again that his attitude all
through was that of a man who could hardly keep from laughing whatever
he did, so that I came to think he must be little short of a raving
maniac, and that perhaps the Court would find him such.
"Oh," says he, "don't you fear, Britten, I shan't treat you that
way--you may drink my whisky all right, a barrelful if you can. When I
want to deal with you, Britten, it will be another way
altogether--cash, my boy; have you any objection to a little cash?"
I opened my eyes wide, telling myself, for the second time, that he was
as certainly mad as any March hare in the picture-books; but I said
nothing, for he had turned to a little wooden cupboard near the
fireplace, and before he spoke again he set a bottle of whisky, a
syphon, and two tumblers on the table, and poured out a stiffish dose
for himself and its fellow for me. When I had watched him drink it,
and not before, I followed suit, and never did a man want a whisky and
soda as badly.
"Your health," says he--I believe I wished him the same. "And little
Mabel Bellamy's----"