“This is a very fine piece of bravado, Mr. Gifford.  But I am not such a fool as it pleases you to think me.  It is very good of you to explain to me my position in this affair; I am, however, quite capable of seeing that for myself.  And you can hardly expect me to look upon your gratuitous advice as disinterested.”

The man was talking to gain time; Gifford shrewdly guessed that.  “I might be pardoned for supposing you do not altogether realize how you stand,” he replied quietly.  “But, after all, that is, as you suggest, your affair.”

Henshaw forced a smile.  “The point of view is everything,” he said in a preoccupied tone; “and ours, yours and mine, are diametrically opposed.”

“The point of view which perhaps ought most to be considered,” Gifford retorted with rising impatience, “is that of the honourable profession to which we both belong.  If you are prepared to face the odium, professional and social, of an exposure—­”

Henshaw interrupted him with a wave of the hand.  “You may apply that to yourself and to your friend, Miss Morriston,” he said sharply.  “I can take care of myself, thank you.”

Gifford shrugged.  “Very well, then.  There is no more to be said.”  He crossed the room and took up his hat.  “I will go and see Major Freeman at once.”  At the door he turned, to see with surprise and a certain satisfaction that Henshaw, although he had risen from his chair, seemed in no hurry to move.  “You are coming with me,” he suggested.  “It would be quite in order, I think, for you to be present at my statement—­unless you prefer not.”

It seemed clear that the rather foxy Gervase Henshaw had really more than suspected a studied game of bluff.  But now Gifford’s attitude tended to put that out of the question.

“In the circumstances, as your statement will consist mainly of a slander against me and my dead brother,” Henshaw replied sullenly, “I prefer to keep out of the business for the present.  I fancy,” he added with an ugly significance, “that the police will be quite equal to dealing with the situation without any assistance or intervention from me.”

Gifford ignored the covert threat.  “Very well, then,” he said, throwing open the door and standing aside for Henshaw to pass out; “I will go alone.  Yes; it will be better.”

But Henshaw did not move.

“I don’t quite gather,” he said in answer to Gifford’s glance of inquiry, “exactly what your object is in taking this step.”

“I should have thought—­” Gifford began.

“Is it,” Henshaw proceeded, falling back now to his ordinary lawyer-like tone—­“is it merely to checkmate what you are pleased to call my designs upon Miss Morriston?”

“That will be a mere incidental result,” Gifford answered, shutting the door and coming back into the room.  “My object is to put it, at once and for all, out of your power to hold over Miss Morriston the threat that she is at any moment liable to be accused—­by you of all people—­of your brother’s murder, and so suggest that she is in your power.”