“It would be to my interest to pay handsomely--very handsomely, if I knew the evidence was”----
“Well, my position is jes’ this; I was a’pointed secretary and treasurer to a benefit society, and a little while ago they wanted money in a hurry, and I couldn’t let ’em ’ave it.”
“No, you speaks plain but not correctly. I had _borrowed_ ’em, and it was inconvenient to return ’em jest when they wanted ’em. They was rash, and wouldn’t listen to explanations, and set the police on me. I have been hiding and seeking, and starving ever since. But I can square it by paying the sum they lent me.”
“Or you lent yourself. What is its amount?”
“Or Josh Maybee must turn up to-morrow, in Wilton’s favour; the bobbies are too close upon my heels to waste any time in parleying about it.”
Mr. Grahame drew forth his pocket-book, and from it selected a fifty pound note. He opened it to the greedy eyes of Chewkle, but he retained it while he spoke.
“I will give you this note now,” he said, slowly, and in a marked manner, “to relieve you from your present difficulties. But I will give you twice ten times that amount when I know that the evidence we have spoken of cannot at any time--mind! at any time--be produced.”
“Give me the note,” said Chewkle. “You shall be made easy in a few days, and I shall be as--as jolly as a sandboy again.”
Mr. Grahame gave him the note. He took it, and, after carefully reading it, put it away into his pocket.
“Twenty o’ them will be worth fingering,” he said, with a grin, and added abruptly, “and, perhaps, if old Wilton was to die _very_ suddenly, it might be something in my pocket.”
A sickly smile passed over Mr. Grahame’s face.
“There is no telling what happens to old men,” he replied. “I have no desire to harm the old fellow, but I would give a magnificent douceur to the man who brought me tidings that he had been gathered to his ancestors.” Then he added quickly--“Haste away, I expect some of my family here--cannot you contrive to slip out unobserved?”
“Rather,” responded Chewkle, with a knowing look, “I came in by the garding, and up the hanging staircase. Luckily, the winder was half open, though the blind was down; I shall go back the same way.”
Mr. Grahame now understood the secret of his sudden and noiseless appearance. He was not sorry to know that the man could retire from the house without being seen, but he resolved that a like opportunity to enter at unbidden moments should not be afforded him.