r. But neither
Harrington nor Quarrier dreamed of such a thing.

Fear sat heavy on that judge's soul--the godless, selfish fear that
sends the first coward slinking from the councils of conspiracy to seek
immunity from those slowly grinding millstones that grind exceeding
fine.

Quarrier at Shotover, with his private car and his locomotive within an
hour's drive, strolled with Sylvia on the eve of her departure for Lenox
with Leila Mortimer; then, when their conference was ended, he returned
to Agatha, calmly unconscious of impending events.

Harrington, at Seabright, paced his veranda, awaiting this same judge,
annoyed as two boats came in without the expected guest. And never for
one instant did he dream that his creature sat closeted with Plank,
tremulous, sallow, nearing the edge of cringing avowal--only held back
from utter collapse by the agonising necessity of completing a bargain
that might save himself from the degradation of the punishment that had
seemed inevitable. All day long he sat with Plank. Nobody except those
two knew he was there. And after a very long time Plank consented that
nobody else except Siward and Harrington and Quarrier should ever know.
So he called up Harrington on the telephone, saying that there was, in
the office, somebody who desired to speak to him. And when Harrington
caught the judge's first faint, stammered word he reeled where he stood,
ashen, unbelieving, speechless. The shaking but remorseless voice went
on, dinning horribly in his ear, then ceased, and Plank's heavy voice
sounded the curt coup de grace.

Harrington was an old man, a very old man, mortally hurt; but he
steadied himself along the wall of his study to the desk and sank into
the chair.

There he sat, feeling the scars of old wounds throbbing, feeling his age
and the tragedy of it, and the new sensation of fear--fear of the wraith
of his own youth, wearing the mask of Plank, and menacing him with the
menace he had used on others so long ago--so very long ago.

After a little while he passed a thin hand over his eyes, over his gray
head, over the mouth that all men watched with fear, over the shaven
jaw now grimly set, but trembling. His hand, too, shook with palsy as
he wrote, painfully picking out the words and figures of the cipher from
his code-book; but he closed his thin lips and squared his unsteady jaw
and wrote his message to Quarrier:

"It is all up. Plank will take over Inter-County. Come at once