Page:Barr--Stranleighs millions.djvu/44

32 five thousand pounds, although the ultimatum would probably be augmented when Brassard more fully realised the wealth of the man he had driven into a corner. Anyhow, there were three days' leeway, and he must discover at once whether John Bendale was impossible as a co-operator. He therefore resolved to call immediately on Bendale, an action he had not intended to take that evening.

He paused in front of Bendale's dingy window and looked in. The man was standing behind the counter in his empty shop, gazing into vacancy, motionless as a statue. The scowling face was stamped with bitterness and hate, and Stranleigh, with an exclamation of dismay, shrunk away from the disturbing sight. It seemed evident that Bendale was already a maniac, whose mind had dwelt too long and too intently on one subject. More discouraged than ever, Stranleigh crossed the road and walked down the street to a small park in the shape of a crescent, where a terrace of houses all of the same size and build swept inwards in the segment of a large circle, forming a bow to the string made by the straight pavement. On this bit of ground between the straight road and the curved terrace trees were growing, and underneath the trees a few benches had been placed. On one of these he sat down. He could see Bendale's shop diagonally across the way, and further along the gaudy block of buildings tenanted by Brassard, before whose windows the arc lights outside were