Haswell, light burns."
Prescott had fallen back a step and Mrs. Martin was making an effort
to appear stately and end the interview.
"No," continued Craig, suddenly wheeling, and startling us by the
abruptness of his next exposure, "it is you and your wife here--Mrs.
Prescott, not Mrs. Martin--who must have a care. Stop glaring at each
other. It is no use playing at enemies longer and trying to get rid of
us. You overdo it. The game is up."
Prescott made a rush at Kennedy, who seized him by the wrist and held
him tightly in a grasp of steel that caused the veins on the back of
his hands to stand out like whipcords.
"This is a deep-laid plot," he went on calmly, still holding Prescott,
while I backed up against the door and cut off his wife; "but it is
not so difficult to see it after all. Your part was to destroy the
eyesight of the old man, to make it necessary for him to call on his
daughter. Your wife's part was to play the role of Mrs. Martin, whom
he had not seen for years and could not see now. She was to persuade
him, with her filial affection, to make her the beneficiary of his
will, to see that his money was kept readily convertible into cash.
"Then, when the old man was at last out of the way, you two could
decamp with what you could realize before the real daughter cut off
somewhere across the continent could hear of the death of her father.
It was an excellent scheme. But Haswell's plain material newspaper
advertisement was not so effective for your purposes, Prescott, as the
more artistic 'telepagram,' as you call it.
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