scheme, but to have parted with material which might yet have been turned to account will seal my doom—that, and having allowed you to survive your triumph over us.”
Forsyth saw now—or thought he saw—why the murderous crew had been ordered off in ignorance of the miscarriage. It was to enable Ziegler to make this desperate appeal for the restitution of the bogus bonds, so that he might “save his face” with his comrades. It would be ample excuse in their eyes—flatter their vanity, as their tottering chief had hinted—if he had himself been deceived by the fabricated securities. But they had seen him examine the parcel; they would know that he had made the discovery on the spot, and yet had not decreed instant death to their successful opponent. One flaw in this chain of reasoning Forsyth, himself no casuist, overlooked. It did not occur to him that the old practitioner with the white beard and the squeaky voice could have put himself right with his companions if he had hounded them on to him the moment he knew he was fingering tissue-paper and not United States Treasury bonds, good, bad, or indifferent.
“Well, Mr. Clinton Ziegler,” said Forsyth, eager now to have done with the matter in the
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