o it with and how to manage afterwards. I knew
it was a swinging risk, but against that was a starving certainty, and
then I spied that match box and the thing was settled. I got him to look
the other way for a moment--and then he was settled. Give me another
drink!"

Carrington got him a drink and he gulped it down, and then turned
suddenly on Ned Cromarty.

"Your damned glass eye has been getting on my nerves long enough!" he
exclaimed. "My God, that eye and your habit of hanging people--I've had
enough of them! Can't you turn it away from me?"

"Won't turn," said Ned coolly, "spring broken. Get on with your story!"

Even in his privileged position as prisoner, Rattar seemed disinclined
to have trouble with his formidable ex-client. He answered nothing, but
turned his shoulder to him and continued:

"After that was over I set about covering my tracks. The first part was
the worst. Before the maids came back I had to get Simon stowed away for
the night--no time to bury him then of course, and I had to get into his
clothes, shave, and learn the lie of the house and all that. I did it
all right and came down to breakfast next morning and passed muster with
the servants, and never a suspicion raised!"

"There was a little," remarked Carrington, "but never enough."

"Not enough was good enough!"

"I am not quite certain of that," said Carrington. "However, go on. Your
next bunker was the office."

The prisoner nodded.

"It took some nerve," he said complacently, "and I'm free to confess
that to begin with I always had a beastly feeling that some one was
watching me and spotting something that didn't look quite right, but,
good Lord, keeping my head the way I kept it, there was nothing to worry
about! Who would ever think that the Simon Rattar who walked into his
office and grunted at his clerks on Wednesday morning, wasn't the same
Simon Rattar who walked in and grunted on Tuesday morning? And then I
had one tremendous pull in knowing all the ropes from old days. Simon
was a conservative man, nothing was ever changed--not even the clerks,
so I had the whole routine at my fingers. And he was an easy man to
imitate too. That was where I scored again. I daresay I have inherited
some of the same tricks myself. I know I found them come quite easy--the
stare and the silence and the grunts and the rest of them. And then I
always had more brains than Simon and could pick up business quicker.
You should have heard me ma