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Updated: June 25, 2025
Barter's smiling face was unchanged, though he gave a slight but perceptible start at the name, and repeated it. 'Do you know it? asked Philip. To the ears of his companion there was something of a challenge in the tone. 'It is not a common name. 'No. Not a common name. I think I have heard it somewhere.
Steinberg recognised him by the light of the gas-lamp. 'Good-evening, he said, nodding. 'Barter's here, I suppose. 'Sir, said Phil, with recovered coolness, a certain light of humour dawning in his mind, 'Mr. Barter is within, and I have no doubt will be very happy to see you. Steinberg cast a sidelong glance at him, and entered. Phil closed the door, and followed close upon his heels.
Gregory made a little movement of recoil, as though his delicacy had received a shock. "Indeed!" he said, with a sort of quivering coldness. The Rector, quick to note opposition, repeated emphatically: "More than surprised; in fact, I think there must be some mistake." "Indeed?" said Gregory again. A change came over Mr. Barter's face. It had been grave, but was now heavy and threatening.
Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to Barter's mind. 'How many of those notes? he asked slowly, emphasising almost every word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, 'have passed into Steinberg's hands? 'All, gasped Barter; 'every one of them!
Barter's limited accomplishments as almost any man alive. Phil's interest in the game had grown grimly observant in the first ten minutes. Young Mr. Barter had a knack, when he shuffled the cards, of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an amateur.
Barter's figure with a singular distinctness, and the face turned round in the gaslight was again as visible as it had been at the moment. He thought he read a meaning in it now.
The young rascal's tendency lay towards monologue, and since it was his cue to be open-hearted, and very unsuspicious of being suspected, he talked with much freedom of himself, his pursuits, and his affairs. The question which Barter's nerves were always finding in Philip's eyes was, as a matter of fact, not often absent from his mind.
To Barter's surprise, there were no soldiers at the tryst on Salisbury Plain on the following Tuesday; and he was suffered to lead Dunne and the two men with him the short, corpulent Mr. Hicks and the long, lean Nelthorp to Moyle's Court without interference. The rich reward that Dunne had promised him amounted in actual fact to five shillings, that he had from Nelthorpe at parting.
But for this slight confirmation of his employer's story he would probably have disbelieved it, but the accidental character of the clue weighed with him, an apparent touch of romance in it gave it a value beyond its merits. 'Could you tell me, sir, he asked, 'exactly what time it was when you left Mr. Barter's office?
To the unobservant stranger the frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had never had much to do with Barter's inward sensations. Perhaps he got the laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to look at as his successor was within.
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