“Where is that money?” I asked, turning to Vetch.

He was more composed now, and his wonted look of alertness had returned.

“Let me understand,” says Vetch.  “You accuse me of—­”

“Of appropriating money that did not belong to you,” I said, filling up his pause.

“A serious accusation,” he said, drawing his brows together.  “And when did this appropriation take place?”

“We are not playing a game,” I said impatiently.  “Where is the money which you stole, and which you used as a lure for your ruffians?”

“We are not playing a game, as you say,” he replied, becoming more and more collected as I waxed hotter.  “You accuse me of stealing, I answer, when did I steal, and what are your proofs?”

“You heard what Mr. McTavish said,” I replied, with difficulty curbing my anger.  “Two thousand pounds are not accounted for; you were here when the money was received; it disappeared during the time you held Mr. McTavish’s place; you bring your desperadoes here to secure it.  ’Tis useless fencing with us.”

“During the time I held Mr. McTavish’s place,” he repeated musingly.  “That was for several months last year, until the day when the owner of this property came of age—­the day when Mr. Humphrey Bold by trickery gained access to this house and threatened my life.  Has it gone from your recollection that I held Mr. McTavish’s place in right of a power of attorney from the legal guardian of the estate, and that whatever I may have done I was empowered to do?  Does it not occur to you that the money you charge me with stealing was appropriated to the payment of the men whom I felt impelled to engage for the defense of this property against the unlawful designs of Mr. Humphrey Bold?

“You will bear me out, Mr. Cludde, when I remind you that the owner of the estate had fled from her lawfully-appointed guardian, aided and abetted in her flight, I doubt not, by this upstart himself.  I am ready to account for my administration of the property to Sir Richard Cludde, and to no one else, and I say you have no right to call in question anything I may have done in his name.”

The fellow’s impudence fairly took my breath away.  For some moments I could do nothing but look at him, and he returned my gaze without blinking, the old sneer playing about his lips.  The brazen coolness with which he ignored his recent attack on the house and sought to put me in the wrong filled me with sheer amazement.  I began to wonder again whether, after all, the tale he had told to the buccaneers was a lie, and he had come back to the house with no further design than to wreak his spite upon it.

And yet this could hardly be, for he could easily have set fire to it, and then the question flashed upon my mind suddenly, why had he pressed home the attack on this particular room, when all the rest of the house lay open to him?  Did not that point to the probability that the money he had spoken of was actually here, in this room?