He clearly had played
the fool--clumsily over-plying the simpleton with drink
till he had killed him. The shadow of murder indubitably
hung over the thing. And then--the crass witlessness
of telegraphing! Already, doubtless, the police of
Edinborough were talking over the wires with Scotland Yard.
A reference to a death in Edinborough, in a telegram
from Newcastle--it was incredible that this should escape
the eye of the authorities. Any minute might bring
a detective through that door there--following into the
Board Room with his implacable scent the clue of blood.
Thorpe's fancy pictured this detective as a momentarily
actual presence--tall, lean, cold-eyed, mysteriously calm
and fatally wise, the omniscient terror of the magazine
short-stories.
He turned faint and sick under a spasm of fright.
The menace of enquiry became something more than a threat:
he felt it, like the grip of a constable upon his arm.
Everything would be mercilessly unravelled. The telegram
of the idiot Kervick would bring the police down upon
him like a pack of beagles. The beliefs and surmises
of the idiot Gafferson would furnish them with the key
to everything. He would have his letter from Tavender
to show to the detectives--and the Government's smart
lawyers would ferret out the rest. The death of
Tavender--they could hardly make him responsible for that;
but it was the dramatic feature of this death which would
inspire them all to dig up everything about the fraud.
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