“You got my letter,” said Mr. Sloman, with a significant look.
“Not a soul in the house, but Frank and the old housekeeper,” was the reply.
“Well,” rejoined the visitor, “let us go slap to business. We have done a little in our time, Mr. Brown, and I flatter myself to mutual satisfaction.”
“Every transaction between us,” continued Mr. Sloman, “safe, honourable, and agreeable.”
“The last stolen bills were devilish awkward to manage,” observed Mr. Brown, “and things became so ticklish, that they were returned to the parties for three hundred. Not a rap more--no--upon my honour!”
“Nothing in the bill line,” observed Mr. Sloman, “at present.”
“Glad of it,” returned Mr. Brown. “Is it a crack?--plate, jewels, or--”
“Quite another line--In a word, a thousand’s offered--get the thing done, and we divide!”
Mr. Brown started. Two things occasioned this disturbance of constitutional self-possession; the first was the largeness of the consideration, and the second, an intimation that the business was in “a new line.”
“Who are the parties, and what’s the business?” was the inquiry.
“Of the one I know nothing; of the other, particulars are contained in this sealed paper. The party who communicates with me, forbade it to be opened until the thing was put in train.”
“Well, how the devil,” said Mr. Brown, “can I enter on a business that I know nothing of?”
“I only know generally,” returned Mr. Sloman, “what it is.”
“There is a person in the way--he must be removed;” said Mr. Sloman in a whisper.
“Murdered, of course,” observed the host.
“Upon my soul, Mr. Brown, I am quite surprised at the unprofessional nature of your remark. Do you see any thing particularly green about me, to lead you to suppose that I would make myself accessory before fact? I neither know the man, nor will know anything of the man; or what _is_ to become of him, or what _will_ become of him. I got this sealed note, and that there _flimsy_ as retaining fee,” and he held up a sealed packet, and a bank note for a hundred pounds, both of which Mr. Brown took and examined most attentively.
“That’s sealed close enough,” he said, laying down the paper on the table; “and that’s _genuine_,” he added, after submitting the bank note to an investigation before the candle, to ascertain the authenticity of the water-mark. “Is the five safe?” he said, still playing with the hundred in his hand.