He gave an uneasy start at the sound of my voice, but did not reply.
"You were in the thing to take my life, you know, and you can probably see your finish by now."
"I didn’t threaten your life. Dragen would have done for you just now when you were insensible if I hadn’t stopped him," he answered after a pause.
"I wasn’t insensible. I know what passed."
"Then you know what I say is true," he said with a note of eagerness.
"Yes, I know it." I paused to see if he would volunteer anything more. He did not however. "If you like to answer my questions I may make things easier for you. Where are we going?"
He paused a long time before replying. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Shoot you if you try any pranks; hand you over to the police if you force me; give you your liberty and pay you well if you come over to my side in the affair and make a clean breast of the whole thing."
He chewed this in silence for a while and then asked: "How do I know that?"
"The first two you can judge for yourself; the last you’ll have to take on trust. You can please yourself. How much were you to make by this job?"
"Five hundred marks; but it wasn’t only the money. Dragen has the whiphand of me."
"He’ll want all his hands for himself after this, and you’ll stand by his side in the dock--unless you go in the witness box against him. Tell all you know, and you shall not have five hundred, but a thousand marks."
"Not if you leave the country. I’ll add the passage money to America. You’re not tough enough for a real scoundrel, you know; and you’ll get a fresh start there."
"I shouldn’t be in it at all if it weren’t for Dragen and the gambling."
"Well, you must make up your mind quickly."
"I’ll do it," he said, after another long pause, drawing a deep breath. "But you must keep me safe from the rest until it’s over;" and then he began to tell me.
He said his name was Lander, and that he had been forced into the affair by Dragen. He had been one of the men who had made the search for the papers at my house, and afterwards had played the part of a plain clothes police officer at Hagar’s, where he had found out that von Felsen was at the back of everything.
The latter’s orders had been to recover possession of the papers at any cost; and when that had been done I was to be kept a close prisoner for a week. But von Felsen’s terms had been, no papers no pay; and thus my declaration that they were in safe hands had caused a split and a quarrel; and Lander and one of the others had decided to go back to von Felsen for fresh instructions.