Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/279

Rh came back to the subject nearest our hearts. This led us to make a few remarks anent Nikola and his character. One thing I had always noticed, when the man came under discussion, and that was the dread Wetherell had of him. My curiosity had been excited as to its meaning, and I could not help asking him for an explanation.

"You want to know how it is that I am so frightened of Nikola?" he asked, knocking the ash off his cigar on the upturned fluke of the anchor alongside him. "Well, to give you my reason will necessitate my telling you a story. I don't mind doing that at all, but what I am afraid of is that you may be inclined to doubt its probability. It is certainly more like the plot of a Wilkie Collins novel than a bit of sober reality. However, if you want to hear it you shall."

"I should like to, above all things," I replied, making myself comfortable and taking another cigar from my pocket. "I have been longing to ask you about it for some time past, but could not quite screw up my courage."

"Well, in the first place," Mr. Wetherell said, "you must understand that before I became a minister of the Crown, or indeed a member of Parliament at all, I was a barrister with a fairly remunerative practice. That was before my wife's death, and when Phyllis was only a little girl. Up to the time I am going to tell you about I had taken part in no very sensational case, nor had I ever had a chance of making a good haul by one. But my opportunity of earning notoriety was, though I did not know it, near at hand. One day I was briefed to defend a man accused of the murder of a Chinaman aboard a Sydney vessel. At first there seemed to be no doubt at all as to his guilt, but by a singular chance,