Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/223

 "In fact, I wrote it myself. Where the devil did you get it?"

"No matter!" Harrington's tone was stern and his gray eyes got a steely glint in them, as he accused. "Scanlon! You, not Adam John, murdered Sheriff Hogan!"

Scanlon twisted uneasily. "Not me," he scowled with a deep flush. "The old man hatched that scheme."

"You mean to tell me," cried the outraged young man, "that Mr. Boland not only knew about this crooked scheme to trick a poor Indian out of his land, but that he actually devised it himself?"

"That's the God's truth, Harrington," asserted the Chief Counsel solemnly.

Eyes blazing indignant disbelief, but without another word to Scanlon, Harrington turned on his heel and went across the hall, face white and determined. When he was finally permitted to enter the private office, Mr. Boland was just hanging up the telephone. He extended his hand and it was velvet-soft: he offered a cigar and his manner was graciously hospitable—deliberate, unhurried and unrestrained.

But Henry was not this time to be put off his course by mere purring placidities. He gave back a pressure less responsive than he had ever given back to the clinging fingers of John Boland; he declined his perfecto with something less of urbanity than it had been offered; and he flung down the once more crumpled pages of the lease upon the glass-topped table and demanded firmly: "Mr. Boland, do you approve of this?"

That gentleman, betraying not the slightest perception that Harrington's manner was unusual, took up the document with curiosity as if he had never