ve you come here? If they catch you,
you will be hanged. Do you know that? For all I know the place is
watched. They may have seen you come in. Perhaps the place is surrounded
now."

"I'll risk it," said the other coolly, drawing a chair up to the table.
"I've got to risk something. But I don't think they saw me come in. I
don't think they'll catch me, and if they do I don't think they'll hang
me. What do you think of that, Fairfield?"

There was the old languid mockery in his voice, but his friend, looking
at him closely, could see that the face had become a trifle thinner,
that beneath the dirt that begrimed it there were haggard traces that
betrayed worry and sleeplessness. Fairfield had thought much of Robert
Grell lately, but he had never dreamed that the hunted man would come to
him--come to him in broad daylight, without a word of warning. Did Grell
know that he was in touch with the police? Had he come, a driven,
desperate man, to fling reproaches at the friend who had joined in the
hunt? That was unlikely. Grell, murderer or not, was not that type. He
did nothing without a reason. He was, Fairfield reflected, a murderer--a
murderer who had not dared stay to face the consequences of his deed.
That surely severed all claims, whatever their old friendship might have
been.

"What do you want?" he asked, with a hard note in his voice. "Why have
you come to me?"

The man in the chair lifted his shoulders.

"That is fairly obvious. I want you to do what, if our situations were
reversed, I would do for you. I want money. If you can get me a few
hundreds I shall be all right."

A spasm contracted Fairfield's face for a second. He had not asked for
explanations. Grell had volunteered none. It seemed as though he were
taking for granted the assumption that he was guilty of the murder.
Surely an innocent man would have been eager to assert his innocence at
the first opportunity. When Sir Ralph answered, it was slowly, as though
he were weighing each word that he spoke. "I would be willing enough to
help a friend--you know that, Grell. But why you should think I would
lift a finger to help you evade justice I fail to see. I know enough of
the law to know that I should become an accessory to the fact."

"You really think I killed that man?" The words came quick and sharp,
like a pistol shot. "I thought you had known me long enough----"

"Words," interrupted Fairfield bitterly. "All words. You were the last
man I sh