“What do you want me to say?” returned the detective.  “You have the best of the game just now, so it would seem.”

“You’re right—­and we mean to keep it; eh, boys?”

“That’s so,” answered several.

“As a spy, he must suffer the fate of a spy,” put in one of the number.

“Unless he consents to join us,” added another.

“I’d never trust this bloody rascal,” broke in Matlock Styles.  “He’s too sharp for us.  He’s a detective.”

“If you don’t mind telling, what is your business down here, Matlock Styles?” asked Adam Adams.  He thought it best to put on a bold front, even with matters looking as black as they did.

“Ha!  So you think you know me?” questioned the Englishman harshly.

“Of course, I know you.”

“Well—­it don’t matter much—­now,” was the significant return.

“Are you transacting business down here?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I do not.”

“In that case, it’s best to keep you ignorant.”

“That’s right, don’t tell him a thing,” came from one of the men who had first caught the detective.

“I want to know why you followed me up?” continued Matlock Styles.  “You’ll find it to your interest to answer me.”

“I might answer as you have done and say it is best to keep you in ignorance.  But I won’t do it.  I followed you up because I think you were connected with the Langmore murders.”

At this Matlock Styles started, but quickly recovered.

“What made you think that?”

“Certain things I discovered around the mansion.”

“Bah!  That shows how you detectives often miss it.  I was not near the Langmore house when the murders were committed.”

“You can prove that?” questioned Adam Adams curiously.

“Of course I can.  I was over to Stony Hill with my team, doing some trading.  I stopped at the tavern and at the hardware store, and had quite a chat with several people there.  I left home at eight o’clock in the morning and didn’t get back until one o’clock in the afternoon.  If you had taken the trouble you could easily have found out that what I have told you is the truth.”

“You can prove that you were at Stony Hill from ten to twelve that morning?”

“I can easily do it.  You can ask Doc Mason, at the hardware shop, Sam Ross at the tavern, and Dick Stout at the stables, besides a dozen others.  Why, I was even talking to Mr. Anderson, the minister.  He is thinking of buying a horse from me.”

“That detective ain’t going to prove anything,” broke in one of the men.

“That’s right,” came from another.  “He has got to take his medicine as a spy.”

“Of course,” said Matlock Styles.  “I only wanted to satisfy his curiosity.  Maybe he’ll die feeling easier now.”

His cold-blooded way of speaking made a chill run down Adam Adams’ backbone.  He was beginning to see the Englishman in a new light.  The man was a master of deception, not as clumsy in thought and action as he assumed to be.  And he was as heartless as a stone.