“Can you make up your mind to tell me where you saw Mr. Fledgeby, Mr. Twemlow?”
“I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservation was not intentional. I encountered Mr. Fledgeby, quite by accident, on the spot.—By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr. Riah’s in Saint Mary Axe.”
“Have you the misfortune to be in Mr. Riah’s hands then?”
“Unfortunately, madam,” returns Twemlow, “the one money obligation to which I stand committed, the one debt of my life (but it is a just debt; pray observe that I don’t dispute it), has fallen into Mr. Riah’s hands.”
“ Mr. Twemlow,” says Mrs. Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he would prevent her doing if he could, but he can’t; “it has fallen into Mr. Fledgeby’s hands. Mr. Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr. Fledgeby’s