Part 10 (1/2)
”None,” said Renshaw bluntly. ”Look here, Sleight,” he added, turning to him suddenly. ”Let me out of this game. I don't like it.”
”Does that mean you've found nothing?” asked Sleight, sarcastically.
”It means that I haven't looked for anything, and that I don't intend to without the full knowledge of that d----d fool who owns the s.h.i.+p.”
”You've changed your mind since you wrote that letter,” said Sleight coolly, producing from a drawer the note already known to the reader.
Renshaw mechanically extended his hand to take it. Mr. Sleight dropped the letter back into the drawer, which he quietly locked. The apparently simple act dyed Mr. Renshaw's cheek with color, but it vanished quickly, and with it any token of his previous embarra.s.sment.
He looked at Sleight with the convinced air of a resolute man who had at last taken a disagreeable step but was willing to stand by the consequences.
”I HAVE changed my mind,” he said coolly. ”I found out that it was one thing to go down there as a skilled prospector might go to examine a mine that was to be valued according to his report of the indications, but that it was entirely another thing to go and play the spy in a poor devil's house in order to buy something he didn't know he was selling and wouldn't sell if he did.”
”And something that the man HE bought of didn't think of selling; something HE himself never paid for, and never expected to buy,”
sneered Sleight.
”But something that WE expect to buy from our knowledge of all this, and it is that which makes all the difference.”
”But you knew all this before.”
”I never saw it in this light before! I never thought of it until I was living there face to face with the old fool I was intending to overreach. I never was SURE of it until this morning, when he actually turned out one of his lodgers that I might have the very room I required to play off our little game in comfortably. When he did that, I made up my mind to drop the whole thing, and I'm here to do it.”
”And let somebody else take the responsibility--with the percentage--unless you've also felt it your duty to warn Nott too,”
said Sleight with a sneer.
”You only dare say that to me, Sleight,” said Renshaw quietly, ”because you have in that drawer an equal evidence of my folly and my confidence; but if you are wise you will not presume too far on either.
Let us see how we stand. Through the yarn of a drunken captain and a mutinous sailor you became aware of an unclaimed s.h.i.+pment of treasure, concealed in an unknown s.h.i.+p that entered this harbor. You are enabled, through me, to corroborate some facts and identify the s.h.i.+p.
You proposed to me, as a speculation, to identify the treasure if possible before you purchased the s.h.i.+p. I accepted the offer without consideration; on consideration I now decline it, but without prejudice or loss to any one but myself. As to your insinuation I need not remind you that my presence here to-day refutes it. I would not require your permission to make a much better bargain with a good natured fool like Nott than I could with you. Or if I did not care for the business I could have warned the girl--”
”The girl--what girl?”
Renshaw bit his lip but answered boldly, ”The old man's daughter--a poor girl--whom this act would rob as well as her father.”
Sleight looked at his companion attentively. ”You might have said so at first, and let up on this camp-meetin' exhortation. Well then--admitting you've got the old man and the young girl on the same string, and that you've played it pretty low down in the short time you've been there--I suppose, d.i.c.k Renshaw, I've got to see your bluff.
Well, how much is it! What's the figure you and she have settled on?”
For an instant Mr. Sleight was in physical danger. But before he had finished speaking Renshaw's quick sense of the ludicrous had so far overcome his first indignation as to enable him even to admire the perfect moral insensibility of his companion. As he rose and walked towards the door, he half wondered that he had ever treated the affair seriously. With a smile he replied:
”Far from bluffing, Sleight, I am throwing my cards on the table.
Consider that I've pa.s.sed out. Let some other man take my hand. Rake down the pot if you like, old man, I leave for Sacramento to-night.
Adios.”
When the door had closed behind him Mr. Sleight summoned his clerk.
”Is that pet.i.tion for grading Pontiac Street ready?”
”I've seen the largest property holders, sir; they're only waiting for you to sign first.” Mr. Sleight paused and then affixed his signature to the paper his clerk laid before him. ”Get the other names and send it up at once.”
”If Mr. Nott doesn't sign, sir?”