‘So you’re a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?’ Philip inquired suavely. ‘How dare you talk to me like that?’ the detected rascal stammered. ‘You come into a gentleman’s rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two----’ When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a chair. The intention in Phil’s mind became simply unconquerable. He cast rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could not restrain the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put the question to him quietly. ‘How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?’ It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but he said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man’s jaw falls, and being released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack. ‘Now the best thing for you to do,’ said Phil, sternly regarding him, ‘will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since the second day of our acquaintance.’ Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other answer. ‘How many of those notes are in Steinberg’s hands?’ Phil asked. The rascal’s wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour, and now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night which thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was one stroke to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the consequences of his own misdeed. Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to Barter’s mind. ‘How many of those notes?’ he asked slowly, emphasising almost every word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, ‘have passed into Steinberg’s hands?’ ‘All,’ gasped Barter; ‘every one of them!’ ‘That will do for the present,’ said Philip, and at that instant there came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started, and clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of justice there, his arrival accurately timed.