“It would be,” he said.

I always have a feeling that I can talk better when I am on my feet, and so, while Tommy sat there puffing out great clouds of smoke from a huge cherry-wood pipe, I paced slowly up and down the room giving him my story.  Like Joyce, he listened to me without saying a word or interrupting me in any way.  I told him everything that had happened from the moment when I had escaped from prison to the time when I had given my promise that I would come and look him up.

“I couldn’t help it, Tommy,” I finished.  “I didn’t want to drag you in, but you know what Joyce is when she has once made up her mind about anything.  I thought the only way was to come and see you.  Between us—­”

I got no further, for with a sudden exclamation—­it sounded more like a growl than anything else—­Tommy had risen from his chair.

“And do you mean to tell me that, if it hadn’t been for Joyce, you wouldn’t have come!  By Gad, Neil, if I wasn’t so glad to see you I’d—­I’d—­” Words failed him, and gripping hold of my hands again he wrung them with a force that made me wince.

Then, suddenly dropping them, he started to stride about the room.  “Lord, what a yarn!” he exclaimed.  “What a hell of a yarn!”

“Well, I told you it was,” I said, nursing my crushed fingers.

“I knew something had happened.  I knew at least that you weren’t going to be taken alive; but this—­” He stopped short in front of me and once more gazed incredulously into my face.  “I wouldn’t know you from the Angel Gabriel!” he added.

“Except that he’s clean shaven,” I said.  Then I paused.  “Look here, Tommy,” I went on seriously, “what are we going to do about Joyce?  I’m all right, you see.  There’s nothing to prevent me clearing out of the country directly I’ve finished with McMurtrie.  If I choose to go and break George’s neck, that’s my own business.  I am not going to have you and Joyce mixed up in the affair.”

Tommy sat down on the edge of the table.  “My dear chap,” he said slowly, “do you understand anything about Joyce at all?  Do you realize that ever since the trial she has had only one idea in her mind—­to get you out of prison?  She has lived for nothing else the last three years.  All this palmistry business was entirely on your account.  She wanted to make money and get to know people who could help her, and she’s done it—­done it in the most astounding way.  When she found it was too soon for your sentence to be altered she even made up some mad plan of taking a cottage near the prison and bribing one of the warders with that eight hundred pounds you left her.  It was all I could do to put her off by telling her that you would probably be shot trying to get away.  Is it likely she’ll chuck the whole thing up now, just when there’s really a chance of helping you?”

“But there isn’t a chance,” I objected.  “If we couldn’t find out the truth at the trial it’s not likely we shall now—­unless I choke it out of George.  Besides, it’s quite possible that even he doesn’t know who really killed Marks.  He may only have lied about me for some reason of his own.”