Gradually, however, St. George awoke to certain unsuspected features of what was going on around him.  The discovery was made one morning when the go-between was closeted in Pawson’s lower office, Pawson conducting the negotiations in St. George’s dining-room.  The young attorney, with Gadgem’s assistance, had staved off some accounts until a legal ultimatum had been reached, and, having but few resources of his own left, had, with Todd’s help, decided that the silver loving-cup presented to his client’s father by the Marquis de Castullux could alone save the situation—­a decision which brought an emphatic refusal from the owner.  This and the discovery of Pawson’s and Gadgem’s treachery had greatly incensed him.

“And you tell me, Pawson, that that scoundrel, Gadgem, has—­Todd go down and bring him up here immediately—­has had the audacity to run a pawnshop for my benefit without so much as asking my leave?—­peddling my things?—­lying to me straight through?” Here the door opened and Gadgem’s face peered in.  He had, as was his custom, crept upstairs so as to be within instant call when wanted.

“Yes—­I am speaking of you, sir.  Come inside and shut that door behind you.  You too, Todd.  What the devil do you mean, Gadgem, by deceiving me in this way?  Don’t you know I would rather have starved to death than—­”

Gadgem raised his hand in protest: 

“EXactly so, sir.  That’s what we were afraid of, sir—­such an uncomfortable thing to starve to death, sir—­I couldn’t permit it, sir—­I’d rather walk my feet off than permit it.  I did walk them off—­”

“But who asked you to tramp the streets with my things uuder your arm?  And you lied to me about it—­you said you wanted to oblige a friend.  There wasn’t a word of truth in it, and you know it.”

Again Gadgem’s hand went out with a pleading “Please-don’t” gesture.  “Less than a word, sir—­a whole dictionary, less, sir, and UNabridged at that, if I might be permitted to say it.  My friend still has the implement of death, and not only does he still possess it, but he is ENORmously obliged.  Indeed, I have never seen him so happy.”

“You mean to tell me, Gadgem,” St. George burst out, “that the money you paid me for the gun really came from a friend of yours?”

“I do, sir.”  Gadgem’s gimlet eye was worming itself into Temple’s.

“What’s his name?”

“Gadgem, sir—­John Gadgem, of Gadgem & Coombs—­Gadgem sole survivor, since Coombs is with the angels; the foreclosure having taken place last month:  hence these weeds.”  And he lifted the tails of his black coat in evidence.

“Out of your own money?”

“Yes, sir—­some I had laid away.”

St. George wheeled suddenly and stood looking first at Gadgem, then at Pawson, and last at Todd, as if for confirmation.  Then a light broke in upon him—­one that played over his face in uncertain flashes.

“And you did this for me?” he asked thoughtfully, fixing his gaze on Gadgem.