"Oh, please don't, please don't! I can explain it all. For mercy sake
don't be cruel--don't send me to prison! I am innocent, Mr Merrett,
Mr Barnacle; I can explain it all. Please don't have me locked up."
In my confusion and panic I turned round and addressed these last words
to Hawkesbury, who received them with a smile in which there was more of
triumph than pity.
"You false coward!" I exclaimed, suddenly seeing who it was, "you did
this. You put the key in my desk while I was locked up stairs."
"Really, Batchelor," replied he, in his sweetest tones, "I'm afraid you
hardly know what you're saying. I don't understand you."
"You do," said I, "and you understand how helpless I am to defend
myself. You and Masham did your work well this morning."
"At any rate," retorted he, firing up, "we gave you a lesson for your
impudence."
Mr Merrett had been speaking with the detective, and did not hear this
dialogue; but Mr Barnacle did, happily for me.
"Then," he said, turning short round to Hawkesbury, "Masham _was_ here
this morning?"
Hawkesbury, thus suddenly cornered, turned first red, then white, and
tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to
be put off in that way.
"Then he _was_ here this morning?" he demanded again.
Hawkesbury had no retreat, and he saw it.
"He just called in for a moment," he said, sullenly; "that's all."
"Oh," said Mr Barnacle, "you can go to your desk, Hawkesbury, for the
present."
Hawkesbury, looking anything but triumphant, obeyed, and Mr Barnacle,
who evidently suspected the real truth more than his partner did, turned
to me.
"Batchelor, do you still decline to offer any explanation of the
discovery of this key in your desk?"
"I can only say," I replied, "that it must have been put there, for I
never touched it."
"Who would put it there?"
"Hawkesbury, I suppose. When he and his friend dragged me up stairs my
desk was left open."
"Can you describe this Masham?"