Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/220

208 policeman, I don’t care for no policeman. Why should I? I’m an honest man. So you get out of my way and let me pass; and that’s all about it.”

“Have you seen Benjamin Batters within the month?”

“Never you mind!”

“Your words are a sufficient answer. I believe that you have been conspiring with Benjamin Batters with fraudulent intent. If you do not furnish me with abundant proof that my suspicions are unfounded I shall summon a constable, and give you into custody upon that charge.”

It was a piece of pure bluff upon my part, which failed.

“That’s the time of the day, is it? I’ve been conspiring with him, have I? What have I been conspiring about?”

“I have no doubt that that is a point on which Captain Lander will be able to show more than sufficient light.”

My words had at last struck home. What lent them especial weight I could not even guess. But that they had moved him more than anything which had gone before his behaviour showed.

“He will, will he? So that’s the game you’re after. You’re a lawyer, and I’m a poor, silly sailor man, so you think you can play just what tricks with me you please. But there’s something else Captain Lander can tell you if you ask him, and that’s that I can be disagreeable when I’m crossed, and if you don’t move away from that door inside a brace of shakes I’m going to be disagreeable now.”

“Don’t threaten me, my man.”

“Threaten?”

His tone suggested that he scorned being thought capable of threatening only, and his action proved it.

He came at me with a suddenness for which I was unprepared. Putting his arms about me while I was