"Deane will come back," he said, with a defiant laugh. "I let him have things his own way to-day, but he knows just where he is. Mark my words, he will be at the office to-morrow morning, and he will be there expecting to see me." CHAPTER VIII A BOLD MOVE Hefferom was over sanguine. It was three days before he was able to see Stirling Deane. During that three days he had lived on a few shillings, spent mostly in drinks. He swaggered into Deane's office, an untidy, dissolute-looking creature. His efforts to seem at his ease were almost ludicrous. "A bit different, this, to the Newey Valley," he remarked, as he sat down without waiting for an invitation. "Things have gone pretty well with you, eh, Deane? Slap-up offices you've got, and the chink of money everywhere. It reminds me of what I've come about." "You have come for money, have you?" Deane asked. "Well, I don't know about that. I don't know how you look at it, but it seems to me that there's a bit owing, a bit which might come my way. I should tell you, perhaps, that I am representing Miss Sinclair as well as myself." "Richard Sinclair's niece?" Deane asked. "Exactly. She is heiress to anything the old man had, and I was partner with him in the Little Anna Gold-Mine." "In what?" asked Deane. "In the Little Anna Gold-Mine," Hefferom repeated distinctly. Deane leaned back in his chair. "I must ask you to explain yourself," he said. "The Little Anna Gold-Mine belongs to the syndicate of which I am a director." "That's all very well for a bluff," answered Hefferom, "but you got rid of Sinclair a little too easily." "Got rid of him?" "Oh! I'm not thinking of this last time," Hefferom interrupted, with a hard laugh. "I am thinking of the time he put you on to the mine, and you took possession of it." "It was perfectly legal," Deane remarked. "Perhaps so,--perhaps it wasn't," Hefferom answered. "Anyway, I know very well, and so, probably, do you, that Sinclair left South Africa six months ago, with the government title-deed of the Little Anna Gold-Mine in his pocket. I advanced him the money to come, and he made me his partner." "These are amazing statements of yours," Deane said. "May I ask where is this wonderful deed?" "You may ask," Hefferom answered, "but not me. Better go to Rowan. He knows, though he keeps his lips tight shut. He knows, and so do you! Never mind about that. You don't want a lawsuit,--no more do we." "Who are 'we'?" Deane asked. "Miss Sinclair and myself," Hefferom answered. "We are partners in this. I have come to you as a reasonable man. Sinclair landed in this country with the title-deeds of the mine which you have always considered yours, in his pocket. To-day he is murdered, and his papers have disappeared. He was murdered by Rowan, whom you are now befriending. There's a story there for the newspapers,--there's something more than a story, Deane." "Do I understand," Deane asked calmly,--