"Tell me once and for all," he cried, "has anything happened to him? Is he dead?"
Strangeways halted, and regarded him with a look half-stern, half-compassionate.
"As for Spurling, you hated him, did you not?" he inquired.
Granger clenched his hands and his voice trembled. "I hated him so much," he said, "that there were times when I would gladly have struck him dead."
Granger started; the question was spoken so fiercely, and was so searching and direct. It aroused him to a sense of his danger, and helped him to recover himself.
"In the first place you would have hanged me, and in the second there was Mordaunt." As soon as he had said it, he knew that he had made a slip.
He hesitated a minute, gathering himself together. He could feel the scrutiny of Strangeways' eyes and was conscious that he was breathing hard.
The question was repeated, "And why Mordaunt?"
"Because Mordaunt was such a clean fellow that I couldn't do anything shabby in his presence," he said.
"Why, in every way; he was so honourable."
"But I thought you said just now that he always sided with Spurling when it came to a dispute?"
"So he did in a sense. He never seemed to think that the thing we quarrelled about was worth while, and treated it all with a well-bred contempt. Spurling was usually the one who was unjust, and I the one who complained; so I was usually the one to start the wrangle. Therefore, though he despised Spurling, he always seemed to blame me for my pettiness."
Strangeways turned on him his honest, manly gaze, as if he were about to ask again, "Is that the truth?" But he did not say it. Granger felt a cur for lying, but he was determined to fight for Spurling's life, and, if that were necessary, for his own revenge.
"And you have not seen Spurling go by the Point?" asked Strangeways.
"No." He said it quite ordinarily, as if he were answering a commonplace. Then he realised that he had been caught in a trap and had not manifested enough surprise. He slowly raised up his eyes, shame-facedly, like a schoolboy detected cribbing, when the master steals up behind.
"I'm afraid, after all, that you are not a gentleman," was all that Strangeways said.
Granger shrank back and flushed as if he had been struck across the face; he did not attempt to defend himself or expostulate. The wind had died down outside; it was evident that the storm had spent itself. In the silence which followed he could hear the padding steps of the huskies going round the house, and the sound of them sniffing about the door. Strangeways, who had been fastening on his snowshoes preparatory to departure, walked across the room and raised the latch. He stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. A bar of moonlight leapt instantly inside, as it had been a fugitive who had been kept long waiting. Then he heard the voice of Strangeways calling, "Granger, Granger."