“Would you mind comparing it with yours, sir? We must not neglect any chance of getting a clue. Allow me!”
He stepped quickly to the old gentleman and flung aside his dressing-gown. The buttons, with the hanging thread of their missing fellow, were revealed. Triumph flashed in the inspector’s face.
Mr. Todmorden jumped back from his grasp. With a sharp cry he drew his hand swiftly from his pocket. There was a report, and he dropped to the floor.
The inspector looked at his lifeless body.
“I thought the old rascal did it,” he said. “A well-planned bit of work, though.”
The young man’s face was pale. His jaw, hard-set in a grip of self-control, lent his clever, handsome features a suggestion of force remarkable for his twenty-two years. At maturity, his intellect, backed by so much character, would be formidable. He turned to the window, stared out of it for a long moment. Then he switched round upon the girl.
“So that’s your last word, Betty?--Finish?”
Her eyes dropped under his, were raised again in a volition which dared to match itself, though she was tremulous with the effort, against the challenge of his voice. Their blue depths were charmingly sincere.
“I cannot help myself, Jack.” She shook her head pathetically. “You ought to understand.”
His voice came grimly, with intent to wound.
“You are selling yourself to James Arrowsmith. Yes, I understand.”
She shuddered, turned away her head in despair of sympathetic comprehension. There was a silence during which both gazed down vistas of gloomy thought. Then she looked up again, diffidently venturing another appeal to his magnanimity.
“I know. He thinks his business is safe if James Arrowsmith is his son-in-law instead of merely his go-ahead competitor. He’s wrong. Arrowsmith would cut his own brother’s throat if he met him on a dark road and thought he had a dollar in his pocket. He’s just a modern brigand!”
“Oh, yes, I know! Father! I can’t help your father being a fool! It’s not my fault that he can’t recognize potentiality in a man--that he is only capable of appreciating a success that is already made, which he can measure by a balance in a bank! Give me ten years--I’ll eat up James Arrowsmith!”
“Ten years, Jack--it’s a long time ahead. We have got to deal with things as they are to-day. And to-day----”