"Of course," pursued Weegman, "you've been aware for some time of my unbounded admiration and regard for Miss Collier. The old man favored me, but I couldn't bring her round. To do so, I decided, it would be necessary for me to accomplish a coup. If I could apparently save her father from ruin she might alter her views. Out of gratitude she might marry me. I'm a man who gets what he wants, by hook or crook. Garrity approached me with a scheme. I listened to it. I believed I saw a way to turn that scheme to my own advantage with Virginia. But I'll tell you now that it never was my intention to put Charles Collier wholly on the blink. At that time even I didn't know how badly involved he was." Even while he told the truth in a way, Weegman was lying in the effort to palliate his act to some degree. His conscience was warped to such an extent that he seemed to believe there could be an excuse for the milder forms of conspiracy and crime. In a bungling way he was actually making a bid for Locke's sympathy. "You must have known of the dastardly arrangement with a crooked doctor to keep Mr. Collier drugged into apparent illness and detain him in Europe beyond reach of the friends who might tell him, Weegman. Who got to that doctor and bought him up?" "Not I," was the denial. "I didn't have the money." "Was it Garrity?" "Of course. Garrity had something on Dalmers, who was concerned in some mighty shady practices at one time. But he told me that Dalmers was simply going to keep watch of the old man. I didn't know anything about the drugging business. When I found that out I was mad as blazes." The southpaw fought to prevent his lips from curling with scorn, and to suppress a look of triumph in his eyes. "What's your proposition to me, Weegman?" The self-acknowledged rascal seemed to hesitate. "You're sure no one can hear us?" he asked, his eyes roving around the room. "You can see that we're quite alone." Weegman drummed nervously on the arm of his chair. "I'm sorry this thing has gone so far," he protested. "I didn't look for it to, at first. I got involved and couldn't back out. In fact, Garrity threatened me when I showed signs of holding back. That," he declared, with an attempt at indignant resentment, "made me sore. Without my help in the beginning he never could have done a thing. Now he thinks he's got me foul, he's going to gobble everything. We'll see about that! Perhaps it isn't too late to stop him. Maybe we can do it, you and I. I'd like to show him." So the rascals had quarreled over the division of the spoils, as rascals so often do. And now one of them was ready to betray the other, if he could do so without disaster to himself. At the same time, he hoped to make an alliance with Lefty by which he might reap some actual benefit from his underhanded work. Suddenly Locke thought of another man who had been suspected of complicity.