He paused, and suddenly his glance found Vanulm's. Keenly he sought to read the expression there; then, with just the shadow of a smile, nodded to himself. "I thought so," he said. "How long have you known?"
"I haven't known," answered Vanulm, "only suspected, from things that have happened lately, that it might be so. In fact, if it hadn't seemed like such a damned piece of impertinence--"
Gordon took the words from his lips. "Yes," he said quickly, "the day you took me to drive. I knew it. I knew you meant well by me, Herman, but it wouldn't have done any good then. It was too late."
The brewer's kindly face took on a troubled frown. "Dick," he said diffidently, "I'm not religious myself, but they say--"
Gordon strove to raise a protesting hand. "Damn it, Herman," he cried, "it's harder than I thought. You're the only man I ever cared a straw for; I suppose that's the reason. But I've got to tell you. I've gone the limit. I was the man that killed Harry Palmer."
[Illustration: "I have gone the limit." Page 369]
Vanulm half recoiled, then made as if to rise, but again Gordon shook his head. "No, no," he said, "it isn't fever; I'm as sane as you are; I wanted money; I tried to blackmail him; drugged him, and made him believe he'd ruined a girl; bled him for a hundred thousand; and then, by the devil's own luck, the thing leaked out. Then it was my life against his, and he was fool enough not to see it. I got my chance out on the island, and I shot him, and threw his body into the quicksand over by the point. That same night I killed the woman who told him, and that's how I got my start. Then came the time about the Konahassett--the Ethel, they called it then--and I couldn't come to terms with Mason; he was honest--and stubborn--and that left only one way. I killed him, and to make things sure, I killed the only woman that ever really cared for me, and married Mason's daughter--" he smiled sneeringly--"the young woman you thought so charming, and who tired of me when she thought my money was gone. To make the thing safe, I had to get the murders saddled on a poor old drunk out there; that never troubled me much, though; he was only a pawn in the game. So I got the mine. And since then, as you probably know, I've been fooling the people right and left--the people that have trusted me; all my stock market letters were fakes; all my battle with the moneyed interests was a sham--I've been hand in glove with them, from the start. My politics have been rotten, right through; I've bought, bribed, corrupted, betrayed, and yet they've followed me like sheep; if I'd have lived, I'd have been president of this country; deals; combinations; God, how, I had things lined up; and now I'm through; I've had my turn at the game; I'm through; and we're counting up the score."