Westerham took a deep breath and laughed almost gaily. “I shall be charmed,” he said.

He paused a little and then continued: “No man, except one with such a reputation as yours,” he said, “would dream of regarding Lady Kathleen Carfax as a possible wife unless he were so equipped with all the arts of blackmail that he had some reason to hope for his success.”

By this time Captain Melun had got back his composure.

“You seem,” he said casually, “to endow Lord Penshurst with an exceedingly poor character.”

“Not exactly,” said Westerham. “I endow you with an exceedingly dangerous one.”

There was another pause, and the two pairs of eyes sought each other, and the heavy-lidded, slumberous eyes of Melun flickered and faltered beneath those of the man who had so correctly jumped to a menacing conclusion.

[Pg 15]

[Pg 15]

“I am about to present to you an argument,” continued the baronet, “which unswervingly follows my present conception of yourself. Long experience of this wicked world—by which I mean that particular kind of vulture-like humanity which preys upon better men than itself—enables me to assume that you are without question a blackmailer, a bad blackmailer, and a blackmailer of no common type.

“But I have also learnt this, that no blackmailer can stand alone. His offence is the most cowardly offence in the world. A blackmailer is always a coward, and a coward is invariably afraid of isolated action. I am therefore very certain that you do not stand alone in this attempt to blackmail me.”

Captain Melun's eyes left those of Westerham and studied the white-painted panel behind the baronet's head.

Sir Paul went steadily on with his pitiless and logical argument.

“I am persuaded,” he said, “that your only motive in leaving New York was to sail on the same ship as myself, and, if possible, find an opportunity of buying my silence on some point.

“Possibly you think that in the discovery which we have mutually made in the past few minutes you have unearthed a fact which may be much to your advantage. You are wrong.

“On the contrary,” Sir Paul continued, “it is I who have unearthed a fact which 

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