"I give you my word, my dear fellow--" Morgan advanced, with the apparent intention of laying his hand upon the other's shoulder; Clifford retreated; Morgan stared. "What's the matter? Why do you draw back?" Clifford's manner was courteously frigid. "You will be able to say anything you wish to say to me from where you are." "Oh yes, I'm quite able to say to you all I wish from where I am; or from anywhere. Don't you think, Mr. Clifford, you're cutting it a trifle fine?" "I don't understand." "No? Surely you're not dull. I beg you to believe I'm not. Haven't I told you I'm Mr. Oldfield's confidential agent?" "You have, sir; though what especial interest that fact should have for me I still fail to understand; and yet I believe that I am not dull beyond the average man. Mr. Nash, while Mr. Morgan is endeavouring to find words with which to convey his meaning to my comprehension, may I again ask you how I can place myself in immediate communication with Mr. Oldfield?" Before Nash could answer, Morgan made a hasty movement towards the speaker, crying-- "You miserable hypocrite! trying to play the innocent with us! asking how you can place yourself in communication with Mr. Oldfield, when you know he's dead!" "Dead! Mr. Oldfield dead, Mr. Morgan!" "Stop that game of pretending, or I shan't be able to keep my hands off you! Not only is Mr. Oldfield dead, and you know it, but you killed him!" "Killed him! I! Mr. Nash, is your friend sane?" "Did ever rogue play the hypocrite so brazenly? and actually I've one of the weapons with which he killed him on me! and here it is. You killed him, Mr. Clifford, with that." Morgan held out a slip of blue paper on which there was some writing. "With that? And what is that? It looks to me rather a singular weapon with which to commit murder." "Does it? you sneering villain! When Brown does all in his power to make of Smith an honest man, and Smith turns out to be a blackguard and a thief, do you think that isn't a blow to Brown? It was that kind of blow killed Joseph Oldfield; it was the shock of learning that you were a forger." "Learning that I was a forger! Mr. Morgan, you--you said just now that you found it difficult to keep your hands off me; now I'm finding it difficult to keep mine off you. What justification have you for the statement you have just made, that I am a forger?" "Isn't that justification enough?" Again Morgan held out the slip of paper. "I repeat the question I put to you just now--what is that?" "It's news to you that it's one of the bills you forged?" "One? Do you charge me with forging others?" "I don't know what you got for them, Mr. Clifford, but you forged bills to the face value of over forty thousand pounds. Are incidents of the kind of such frequent occurrence in your career that it is necessary to recall this one to your recollection?" "And do you seriously accuse me of forging bills for more than forty thousand pounds? Was ever anything heard like it?"