Beaumaroy’s mind leapt to the Sergeant.  Ten to one it was the Sergeant!  He had long been after the secret; he had at last sniffed it out, and was helping himself!  It seemed to Beaumaroy a disgusting thing to do, with the dead man sitting there.  But that was sentiment.  Sentiment was not to be expected of the Sergeant, and disgusting things were.

Then he suddenly recalled Alec Naylor’s story of the two men, one tall and slight, one short and stumpy, who had reconnoitered Tower Cottage.  The Sergeant had an accomplice, no doubt.  He listened again.  He heard the scrape of metal on metal, as when a man gathers up coins in his hand out of a heap.  Yet he stood where he was, smoking still.  Thoughts were passing rapidly through his brain, and they brought a smile to his lips.

Let them take it!  Why not?  It was no care to him now!  Doctor Mary had to tell the truth about it, and so, consequently, had he himself.  It belonged to the Radbolts.  Oh, damn the Radbolts!  He would have risked his life for it if the old man had lived, but he wasn’t going to risk his life for the Radbolts.  Let the rascals get off with the stuff, or as much as they could carry!  He was all right.  Doctor Mary could testify that he hadn’t taken it.  Let them carry off the infernal stuff!  Incidentally he would be well rid of the Sergeant, and free from any of his importunities, from whines and threats alike; it was not an unimportant, if a minor, consideration.

Yet it was a disgusting thing to do—­it certainly was; and the Sergeant would think that he had scored a triumph.  Over his benefactor too, his protector, Beaumaroy reflected with a satiric smile.  The Sergeant certainly deserved a fright—­and, if possible, a licking.  These administered, he could be kicked out; perhaps—­oh, yes, poor brute!—­with a handful of the Radbolts’ money.  They would never miss it, as they did not know how much there was, and such a diversion of their legal property in no way troubled Beaumaroy’s conscience.

And the accomplice?  He shrugged his shoulders.  The Sergeant was, as he well knew from his military experience of that worthy man, an arrant coward.  He would show no fight.  If the accomplice did, Beaumaroy was quite in the mood to oblige him.  But while he tackled one fellow, the other might get off with the money—­with as much as he could carry.  For all that it was merely Radbolt money now; in the end Beaumaroy could not stomach the idea of that—­the idea that either of the dirty rogues in there should get off with the money.  And it was foolish to attack them on the front on which they expected to be attacked.  Quickly his mind formed another plan.  He turned, stole softly out of the parlor, and along the passage towards the front door of the cottage.