The brown features of the old man flushed angrily as he laughed.
"Well, Mr. Dingwell, I can only repeat what I have said, and I will also speak to Mr. Larkin. I have no power in the business myself, and you had better talk to him," said Cleve.
"I prefer the fountain-head, sir. I don't care twopence how you arrange it among yourselves; but you must give me the money by Saturday."
"Rather an early day, Mr. Dingwell; however, as I said, the question is for my uncle; it can't affect me," said Cleve.
Mr. Dingwell mused angrily for a little, and Cleve thought his face one of the wickedest he had ever seen while in this state of excited rumination.
"You all--_both_ owe me more in that man's death--there are very odd circumstances about it, I can tell you--than, perhaps, you at present imagine," said Mr. Dingwell, looking up suddenly, with a dismal sneer, which subsided into an equally dismal stare.
Cleve, for a second or two, returned the stare, while the question crossed his mind: "Can the old villain mean that my miserable uncle met his death by foul means, in which he took a part, and intends to throw that consideration in with his averred services, to enhance his claim?"
"You had better tell your uncle, with my compliments," said Mr. Dingwell, "that he'll make a kettle of fish of the whole affair, in a way he doesn't expect, unless he makes matters square with me. I often think I'm a d----d fool, sir, to let you off as I do."
"I don't see, Mr. Dingwell, that you are letting us off, as you say, so very easily," answered Cleve, with a cold smile.
"No, you _don't_ see, but I'll _make_ you see it," said Mr. Dingwell, very tartly, and with an unpleasant laugh. "Arthur Verney was always changing his quarters--was never in the light. He went by different nicknames. There were in all Constantinople but two men, except myself, the Consul, and the stockbroker, who cashed the money-orders for him, who could identify him, or who knew his name. He lived in the dark, and not very cleanly--you'll excuse the simile--like one of your sewer-rats. He died suddenly and oddly, sir, like a candle on which has fallen a drop of water, with a splutter and a flash, in a moment--one of your Verney deaths, sir. You might as well hope to prove the death of a particular town-dog there, without kennel, or master, or name, a year after his brothers had eaten him." Cleve knew that old Dingwell in this spoke the truth and lied not. Lord Verney had written to great people there, who had set small ones in motion, with a result very like what Dingwell described. Arthur Verney was a gipsy--seldom sleeping for two weeks in the same house--with so many different names that it was vain attempting to trace him, and merely emerging when he wanted money. "So, sir," said Mr. Dingwell, with a smirk, "I see my value."