ver-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. It
was this same sensational added element of the death, too, which would
count with a jury. They were always gross, sentimental fools, these
juries. They would mix up the death and the deal in Rubber Consols,
and in their fat-headed confusion would say "Penal Servitude--fourteen
years." Or no, it was the Judge who fixed that. But the Judges were
fools, too; they were too conceited, too puffed up with vanity, to
take the trouble to understand. He groaned aloud in a nightmare of
helplessness.

The sound of his own voice, moaning in his ears, had a magical effect
upon him. He lifted his head, gazed about him, and then flushed deeply.
His nerveless cowardice had all at once become unbelievable to himself.
With a shamed frown he straightened himself, and stood thus for a long
minute, engrossed in the definite task of chasing these phantoms from
his mind. Once a manly front was displayed to them, they slunk away with
miraculous facility. He poured out some brandy, and sipped it neat, and
laughed scornfully, defiantly, aloud