Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/264

 "I know," nodded Trafford. "That was the reason you had me attacked in the bridge at Millbank. I would have been robbed of the papers—thrown into the river, perhaps. For the moment, I assumed that it was the same men who committed the murder. I saw my mistake, however, very quickly."

He added the last words, as it were, as an apology for the mistake itself. As a matter of fact, Matthewson had known nothing of the assault until some days after it took place, but he scorned a denial that must seem like an effort to escape responsibility, and so said nothing to disabuse the other's mind of the belief that he had helped plan the assault.

"The most serious aspect of that affair," Trafford continued, "was the death of the Canuck—Victor Vignon."

But Matthewson was not in a mood to feel keenly the death of a mere logger, whom he had never seen and whose importance, in comparison with the good name and continued power of the Matthewson family, was as nothing. He did not care even to assume an interest for the sake of appearance. He was thinking, thinking fast, and only half hear