"But, sir, considering that it was your wife's, and that she wore it on the very day – "
"Quite so. On the very day of her wedding – "
"That is not what I meant – "
"But that is the aspect of the affair which endears the ring to me. Pray let us keep to the business in hand. You bring me a ring which I own I should not like you to have kept from me. You make me a present of this ring, and you ask me to help you out of the country. Now, how much would be sufficient to help you out of the country, and settle you and your wife comfortably in a new home?"
"A thousand pounds."
"A thousand pounds! My dear Joe, if you were about to represent the majesty of the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland at a foreign court, you could ask little more for travelling-expenses and commencing existence. A thousand pounds! What a lucrative business yours must have been to make you hope you could get a thousand pounds for the goodwill of it!"
"But it is not every day a thing like this turns up. You have a lot of waiting before you get your chance. In fact, my chance did not belong to the ordinary business at all."
"Quite so. It was a kind of perquisite. Well, now, Joe, don't you think if I gave you twenty-five pounds as a present it would fully provide for your outward voyage?" Mr. Grey made the proposal with a winning and an enticing gesture of his left hand.
Farleg looked down at his boots again, and said very slowly, and with an accent that left no doubt of his earnestness and determination:
"It isn't often a chance of this kind turns up, and I can't afford to let it pass; no honest man could afford to let it pass, and I have a wife looking to me. You have no one looking to you, not even a wife – not even a wife."
"Quite so."
"Well, I want the money. I want to try and get an honest start in life, and I think I shall buy land – "
"Out of the thousand pounds?" queried Mr. Grey, with a look of amused enjoyment.
"Out of the thousand pounds you are going to give me. Can't you see," added Farleg, sitting up in his chair, leaning both his elbows on the small table between them, "can't you see it's to your advantage as well as mine to give me a large sum?"
"Candidly I cannot," answered Mr. Grey, tapping Farleg encouragingly on the shoulder with his white left hand. "Tell me how it is. I am quite willing to be convinced."
"Well, if I take your five-and-twenty, I spend it here, or I spend it getting there, and then I'm stranded, don't you see, sir?"
"Go on." With two soft appreciative pats from the left white hand.
"Of course, as soon as I find myself hard up I come to you, or I write to you for more, and that would only be wasting your time."
"But," said Mr. Grey, with a sly look and a sly wag of his head, "if you got the thousand you might spend it here or there, and then you might again be applying to me. Ah, no! Joe, I don't think it would do to give you that thousand. You can have the twenty-five now, if you like."
"Well, sir, I've looked into the matter deeper than that. When you give me the thousand, I and my wife will leave this country, go to America, out West, and buy land. There we shall settle down as respectable people, and it would be no advantage to me to rake up the past, once I was settled down and prosperous. So, sir, if you please, I'll have the thousand."
There was respectful resolution in Farleg's voice as he spoke. The faces of the two men were not more than a foot apart now. They were looking as straight into one another's eyes as two experienced fencers when the play begins. Mr. Grey's face ceased to move, and took a settled expression of gracious badinage.
"I think, Joe," said he, "that I can manage the matter more economically than your way."
"What is that way, sir?"
"As I told you before, I look on you as a very enterprising man. First, you break into a man's house in daylight, and then you come and beard the lion in his den. You come to the man whose house you honoured by a visit through a window, and you say to him – I admit that nothing could have been in better taste than your manner of saying it – "
"Thank you, sir, but you took me so kindly and so gentleman-like."
"Thank you, Joe; but I mustn't compliment you again, or we shall get no farther than compliments to-night. As I was saying, you ask him for no less than a thousand pounds to help you out of the country and into a respectable line of life. Indeed, all my sympathy is with you in your good intention, but then I have to think of myself – "
"But you're a rich man, sir, and to you a thousand pounds isn't much, and it's everything to me. It will make me safe, and help me out of a way of life I never took to until driven to it," pleaded Farleg.
"Well put, very well put. Now, this is my position. This is my plan; let me hear what you think of it: On the night or evening of the 17th you break into my house; on the night or evening of the 27th you visit me for some purpose or other – "
"To give you back your dead wife's ring."
"Quite so. You may be sure I am overlooking no point in the case. Let me proceed with my view. You and I don't get on well together, and you attack me. You are clearly the burglar, and I am attacked by you, and I defend myself with force. You kill me; that is no good to you. You won't make a penny by my death. But suppose it should unhappily occur that the revolver, on the trigger of which, Joe, I now have my finger, and the muzzle of which is about a foot from your heart, suppose it should go off, what then? You can see the accident would be all in my favour."
Farleg uttered a loud whistle.
For a second no word was spoken. No movement was made in that room.
All at once, apparently from the feet of the two men, a wild alarmed scream of a woman shot up through the silence, and shook the silence into echoes of chattering fear.
As though a blast had struck the banker's face, it shrivelled up like a withered leaf. Something heavy fell from his hand in the drawer, and he rose slowly, painfully, to his feet.
Farleg rose also, keeping his face in the same relation, and on the same level as the banker's, until the pinched face of the banker stole slowly above the burglar's.
The hands of Grey rested on the table. His eyes were fixed on vacancy. He seemed to be listening intently, spellbound by some awful vision, some distracting anticipation intimately concerned with appalling voices.
Slowly from his lips trickled the whispered words: "What was that?"
"My wife's voice," whispered Farleg. "You thought it was yours. When I told you no one knew, I meant I had no pal. But my wife knows all, and if anything came amiss to me she'd tell all."
"I understand," the banker answered, still in a whisper. The dread was slowly descending from his face, and he made a hideous attempt at a smile.
"I, too," pursued Farleg, "was afraid we might quarrel, and left her there. For one whistle she was to scream out to show she was on the watch. For two whistles she was to run away and call help. Do you see, sir?"
"Very clever. Very neat. You have won the odd trick."
"And honours are divided."
"Yes. How is that money to reach you?"
"I'd like it in gold, sir, if you please. You can send it in a large parcel, a hamper, sir, or a large box, so that no one need be the wiser. I'm for your own good as well as my own in this matter."
"You shall have the money the day after to-morrow at four o'clock. It will reach you from London. Now go."
"Well, after what has been done, and our coming to a bargain, shake hands, Wat," said the man, in a tone of insolent triumph.
"Go, sir. Go at once!"
"Honours are not divided; I hold three to your one. Give me your hand, old man. Joe Farleg will never split on a pal."
With a shudder of loathing the banker held out his hand.
As soon