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 wholly succeeding. "What's he been up to now? Done anything to you?" Lucas essayed raillery.

"We both know perfectly well what he did," Barney replied. "He killed James Quinlan at Resurrection Rock the night I arrived there. For that reason, he must be locked up."

Lucas mouthed his cigar while his squinted eyes studied Barney. He had long been fully aware, from the reports which Bennet had brought him, that this fellow, who had named himself Loutrelle, and Ethel both believed that Kincheloe had killed James Quinlan; yet no one had directly made the charge to Lucas before this. Also there was a quietness of statement of accepted fact about this accusation which made it contrast with Ethel's excited charge against him.

Loutrelle, by his waiting, showed that he expected denial or some comment or ejaculation; but Lucas merely continued to squint.

"Of course," Barney continued then, without encouragement, "he acted with your knowledge. You were with him as accessory to murder as you were when you sent Quinlan from Galilee with his torch for Henry Laylor."

Lucas's cigar dropped from his mouth; the impact of his pulses rat-tatted in his brain, in the bend of his elbows, in his fingers and down to his toes. He remained mute, continuing to stare, not because of choice; he could not have spoken now.

"But I do not mean yet to ask a warrant for you," this young fellow called Loutrelle went on. "You can always be found; but Kincheloe is different. You are having dealings with him and can have him locked up on some technical charge—theft, forgery, anything which will keep him in jail. If you do this, it will not be