My turn will come yet, you spy, and then you 'll
learn how I bite."
I laughed, feeling no mercy.
"All in good time, friend; I think you have had your innings; now it's
mine. So you are Charles Henley?"
He did not answer.
"The illegitimate son of Judge Henley and a negro mother. That's a
clever forgery, that paper of legal adoption, I admit. Must have had
legal advice for that. What did you pay the lawyers?"
He stared at me with compressed lips.
"Not ready to confess yet? Well, you will be. By the way, who was
that Pierre who wrote telling you of Philip's death? Not Vonique, was
it?"
"You damn white devil!" he burst forth, tortured beyond resistance.
"What do you know about him? Who told you?"
"You 'll learn it all soon enough."
"You 're a sneaking detective!"
"Oh, no, Henley; I 'm merely a man who drifted into this adventure
blindly, but now I am going to fight it out for sake of the woman.
It's a pity for you that you did n't tap me on the head a bit harder
back in the cellar."
His teeth ground together savagely, and he burst into a string of oaths.
"That's enough," and I got to my feet. "I see I 'll have to gag you
again."
"Where 's the steward?"
"Asleep in the pantry when I came in here.
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