ave just been communicating to you. What I
had known of Tyrrel at Smyrna, had given me much interest in him, and
you may guess it was not lessened by the distresses which he had
sustained through his brother's treachery. By this fellow's means, I
have counterplotted all his master's fine schemes. For example, as soon
as I learned Bulmer was coming down here, I contrived to give Tyrrel an
anonymous hint, well knowing he would set off like the devil to thwart
him, and so I should have the whole dramatis personae together, and play
them all off against each other, after my own pleasure."

"In that case," said Mr. Mowbray, "your expedient brought about the
rencontre between the two brothers, when both might have fallen."

"Can't deny it--can't deny it," answered Scrogie, a little
discountenanced--"a mere accident--no one can guard every point.--Egad,
but I had like to have been baffled again, for Bulmer sent the lad
Jekyl, who is not such a black sheep neither but what there are some
white hairs about him, upon a treaty with Tyrrel, that my secret agent
was not admitted to. Gad, but I discovered the whole--you will scarce
guess how."

"Probably not easily, indeed, sir," answered Mowbray; "for your sources
of intelligence are not the most obvious, any more than your mode of
acting the most simple or most comprehensible."

"I would not have it so," said Touchwood; "simple men perish in their
simplicity--I carry my eye-teeth about me.--And for my source of
information--why, I played the eavesdropper, sir--listened--knew my
landlady's cupboard with the double door--got into it as she has done
many a time.--Such a fine gentleman as you would rather cut a man's
throat, I suppose, than listen at a cupboard door, though the object
were to prevent murder?"

"I cannot say I should have thought of the expedient, certainly, sir,"
said Mowbray.

"I did, though," said Scrogie, "and learned enough of what was going on,
to give Jekyl a hint that sickened him of his commission, I believe--so
the game is all in my own hands. Bulmer has no one to trust to but
Solmes, and Solmes tells me every thing."

Here Mowbray could not suppress a movement of impatience.

"I wish to God, sir, that since you were so kind as to interest yourself
in affairs so intimately concerning my family, you had been pleased to
act with a little more openness towards me. Here have I been for weeks
the intimate of a damned scoundrel, whose throat I ought to have