West went red to the rim of his collar.  He choked with the vehemence of his response.

“Believe it, man?  D’you think I’m crazy?  What sort of a fool would I be to believe it?  Wasn’t I there, that night, with you?  Wait until I give my evidence in court.  Bullet or no bullet, you’re no—­no murderer, Nigel; I’d swear my life away on that.  There were others on worse terms with Wynne than you, old chap.  There was Stark, for one.  Stark used to borrow money from him in the old days, you know, until they had a devil of a shindy over an I.O.U. and the friendship bust.  You’d no more reason to kill him than Lester Stark, I swear.  Or me, for that matter.”

“No, I’d no reason to kill him, Tony.  But they’ll take that quarrel we had over the Frozen Flame that night, and bring it up against me in court.  They’ll bring everything against me; everything that can be twisted or turned or bullied into blackening my name.  If ever I get scot-free, I’ll kill that man Borkins.”

West put up his hand suddenly.

“Don’t,” he said, quietly; “or they’ll be putting that against you, too.  Believe me, Nigel, old boy, the Law’s the greatest duffer on earth.  By the way, here’s a piece of news for you!  Heard it as I stopped in at the Towers this morning.  Saw that man Headland, the detective.  He told me to tell you, and I clean forgot.  But they found an I.O.U. on Wynne’s body, an I.O.U. for two thou’—­in Lester Stark’s name.  Dated two nights before the party.  Looks a bit funny, that, doesn’t it?”

Funny?  Merriton felt his heart suddenly bound upward, and as suddenly drop back in his breast like lead.  Glad that there was a chance for another pal to come under the same brutal sway as he had?  What sort of a friend was he, anyway?  But an I.O.U.!...  And in Lester Stark’s name!  He remembered the black looks that passed between the two of them that night, remembered them as though they had been but yesterday.  He jerked his chin up.

“What’re they going to do about it?”

“Headland told me to tell you that he was going to investigate the matter further.  That you were to keep up your heart....  Seemed a decent sort of a chap, I must say.”

Keep up his heart!...  And there was a chance of someone else taking his share of the damnable thing, after all!...  But Lester Stark wouldn’t kill.  Perhaps not—­and yet, some months ago he had told him to his face that he’d like to send Wynne’s body to burn in hell!...  H’m.  Well, he would have to keep his mouth shut upon that conversation, at all events, or they’d have poor Stark by the heels the next minute....  But somehow his heart had lightened.  Cleek didn’t seem such a bad chap, after all.  And they couldn’t hang him yet, anyhow.

For the rest of the long, dreary day the memory of that I.O.U. with Lester Stark’s name sprawled across the bottom of it, in the dashing caligraphy that he knew, danced before his mind’s eye like a fleeting hope, making the day less long.