When you went through his papers in such a hurry, Harker,
weren't you looking for something to--to make sure it shouldn't be
found?"
Harker did not turn a red hair on his hard head, but he looked at
the other out of the corners of his eyes.
"And I suppose," went on Fisher, smoothly, "that is why you, too,
told us lies about having found Hook alive. You knew there was
something to show that you might have killed him, and you didn't
dare tell us he was killed. But, believe me, it's much better to be
honest now."
Harker's haggard face suddenly lit up as if with infernal flames.
"Honest," he cried, "it's not so damned fine of you fellows to be
honest. You're all born with silver spoons in your mouths, and then
you swagger about with everlasting virtue because you haven't got
other people's spoons in your pockets. But I was born in a Pimlico
lodging house and I had to make my spoon, and there'd be plenty to
say I only spoiled a horn or an honest man. And if a struggling man
staggers a bit over the line in his youth, in the lower parts of the
law which are pretty dingy, anyhow, there's always some old vampire
to hang on to him all his life for it."
"Guatemalan Golcondas, wasn't it?" said Fisher, sympathetically.
Harker suddenly shuddered.
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