“I decline to tell you.”

“No matter⁠—I shall find out. If that information is true⁠—mind I say, with the whole force of my resolution, if ⁠—you are making your market of it here by treachery of your own or by treachery of some other man. I note that circumstance for future use in my memory, which forgets nothing, and proceed.” He held up another finger. “Second question! Those lines you invited me to read are without signature. Who wrote them?”

“A man whom I have every reason to depend on, and whom you have every reason to fear.”

My answer reached him to some purpose. His left hand trembled audibly in the drawer.

“How long do you give me,” he asked, putting his third question in a quieter tone, “before the clock strikes and the seal is broken?”