'Don't you do anything of the kind.'

'You heard what I said?'

The servant was withdrawing when Mr. Acrodato became excited.

'Stop! Look here, my lord, don't you do anything in a hurry. You first of all listen to me!'

'See that some one is ready to fetch a constable the moment I ring; two of you remain within call.'

The man withdrew. Mr. Acrodato evidently did not relish my parting injunction.

'We don't want to have any confounded servants listening to what we have to say.'

'Corroboration, Mr. Fraser----'

'Don't call me out of my name.'

'Corroboration, Mr. Fraser, is sometimes useful--you will have to be quick if you wish to say anything before I ring the bell.'

'Look here. Of course I know you're only bluffing me, but I don't wish to make myself disagreeable. You give me those papers you've been talking about and my capital, and five per cent, interest, and you shall have the bill.'

'Mr. Fraser----'

'I wish you wouldn't call me by that name. What's the good of it?'

'I'll tell you what I might be persuaded to do. You give me that bill, and your word of honour that you will contradict any libellous stories you may hear reflecting on the genuineness of my father's signature, and so long as you refrain your own tongue from indiscretion I may keep still.'

'And I'm to lose my money?'

'And save your life.'

'Don't talk silly nonsense. I'm not going to let you rob me with my eyes open. Now I'll tell you what I'll do. You give me thirty thousand pounds.'

'Mr. Fraser, if you don't hand over that bill in sixty seconds I ring the bell. If I ring again, you pa.s.s into the hands of the police and the law must take its course.'

'Give you the bill? You don't suppose I've got it on me?'

I stood with my watch in hand. 'Fifteen seconds.'

'My lord, you've had my money--you can't deny you've had my money! And you've had it all these years! A great gentleman like you don't want to rob a man like me!

'Thirty seconds.'

'My lord, listen to reason! I'm a poor man! I really am! I've had the most frightful losses! I've had to do with a lot of thieves!'

'Forty-five seconds.'

'Have mercy, my lord, have mercy! Make it half the money! Say ten thousand! Call it five! You don't want to leave me without a penny, my lord!'

'Sixty seconds. What they call the Birmingham Mystery will now be solved.'

'My lord, don't ring that bell.'

He caught me by the arm.

'Remove your arm.'

'You shall have the bill.'

'Give it me.'

He began to fumble with a pocket-book. 'My lord, I do ask you to listen to reason! I'm sure you don't want----'

'If you say another word I ring.'

He handed me a slip of blue paper. It was a bill, dated some sixteen years back, promising to pay thirty thousand pounds three months after date. It was signed 'Sherrington.' An endors.e.m.e.nt was scrawled across it--'Twickenham.' That endors.e.m.e.nt was the little accident which had sent my double to San Francisco.

When I had gathered the purport of the doc.u.ment I looked at Mr.

Acrodato. Murder was in his eyes.

'What are you going to give me for it?'

'Your life.'

'You cursed thief?'

I didn't like the words, nor the way in which he said them. There are occasions on which the devil enters into me. That was one.

I was a much smaller man than he, but I have physical strength altogether beyond what the average stranger suspects, and a curious mastery of what we will call certain tricks.

On a sudden I took him by the throat, beneath his beard, and with a twist which I have reason to know almost broke his neck, I jerked him back upon a chair. Driving his head against the back of it, I all but choked the life right out of him. It was only when I felt it slipping through my fingers that I thought it time to stop.

'Mr. Fraser, I'm afraid that one day I shall have to kill you. I've a mind to do it now; only it would be difficult to explain your corpse.'

I never saw a man cut a more ludicrous figure. The pain he had had to bear was no small thing. I shouldn't be surprised if for days his neck was conscious of the twist I had given it. But his amazement eclipsed his suffering. Not until that moment had he realised what a change had taken place in his lordship's character, and in his lordship's methods. For some seconds he gasped for breath--as was only natural. When he shambled to his feet he shrank from me like some panic-stricken, half-witted fool. While he was still staring at me, as if I had been some uncanny thing, the door opened and Mr. Smith came in.

'Surely it is Douglas Howarth! My dear Douglas, I am very glad to see you. This is Mr. Acrodato. He tells me that some injurious reports have been current with reference to a bill which my father backed at my request. Here is the bill. He has undertaken, in future, to give any such reports which may reach his ears the fullest contradiction.

Mr. Acrodato, you may go.'

He went--and, I believe, was glad to go, even though he left both his bill and his money behind him.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE