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The little man's face was livid with fury, his eyes flashed like electric points. "Pig, beast, drunken hound," he screamed. "Have you no sense of shame or duty? After to-night I will give you a lesson. After to-night you shall know what it is to play with me." The man called Bentwood lapsed into sudden dignity. "Very well," he said. "Have it your own way.
The harsh, ringing command seemed to restore the other listeners to a sense of what they owed to themselves. With a cry, the man called Reggie was on Berrington, though Mary Sartoris had fallen and clasped him around the knees. With an oath, Bentwood darted forward and flung himself upon Berrington's shoulders.
Gonzalves, with a highly varnished complexion, who took off his hat elaborately as he passed the open door. She became conscious of her use of the roses, and abandoned them. Presently she sat down on a bentwood rocking-chair, and swayed to and fro, aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour later she was still sitting there.
"We always said that Bentwood was the actual culprit, and that he experimented with certain poisons that produced quite new results. Some said that the Rajah committed suicide. Perhaps the poison administered to him took that form. Anyway, Bentwood disappeared, and it was generally understood that he met his death by falling out of a boat when shooting sea fowl.
The only one who seemed disposed to a mild course of policy was Bentwood. "For heaven's sake don't let us have any violence," he said hoarsely. "There has been too much of that already. I mean there is no necessity for anything of the kind. If Colonel Berrington knows anything of any of us " "I know everything," Berrington replied.
That was the story that one of his servants brought back, but we could never ascertain how far that fellow was in his master's pay. Anyway, a year later one of our men came back from his long leave, saying that he had seen Bentwood at Monte Carlo, and that he appeared to be bursting with money. Another of ours was reported to have seen him after that, almost in rags, in London.
It seemed to him that a bold course of action was the best to be taken under the circumstances. "For instance, I have a pretty accurate knowledge of the checkered past of Dr. Bentwood and the malignant scoundrel who calls himself Carl Sartoris. Of Miss Mary Sartoris I will say nothing. There are others here, too, whose past is not altogether wrapped in mystery.
"It is not much that I am going to ask," said Field. "Only this: Please take us at once to the spot where we can find the body of Sir Charles Darryll." Bentwood jumped nimbly to his feet. The question seemed to fairly stagger him. If he had thought of concealing anything, he abandoned the idea now. "Come this way, gentlemen," he said. "You are too many for me altogether.
Sartoris spoke in a waspish whisper: "So the land lies in that quarter," he said. "We have an informer amongst us. If I had known that before, my good Bentwood, if I had known that before!" Big as he was, Bentwood looked small and mean at that moment. "You are quite mistaken," he cried. "You are altogether wrong, my dear Carl. I am as much of a prisoner as any of you.
It was a strange scene, altogether, Sartoris a huddled heap, cursing and snarling in his chair, the man Reggie and the woman Cora standing by, with uneasy grins on their faces, trying to carry it off in a spirit of false bravado. To the right of them stood Bentwood, now quite sober and shaking, and Richford sullen and despairing. Beatrice was in the shadow behind Mark Ventmore.
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