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The Secret of the Tower by Anthony Hope
page 70 of 195 (35%)
to the two men talking in a corner. Yet the stranger lowered his voice
to a whisper, as he added:

"From me to you fifty quid on account; from you to me just a sight of the
place where they put it."

Sergeant Hooper drank, smoked, and pondered. The stranger showed the edge
of a roll of notes, protruding it from his breast-pocket. The Sergeant
nodded, he understood that part. But there was much that he did not
understand. "It fair beats me what the blazes they're doing it _for_," he
broke out.

"Whose money would it be?"

"The old blighter's, o' course. Boomery's stony, except for his screw."
He looked hard at the gentlemanly stranger, and a slow smile came on his
lips, "That's your idea, is it, mister?"

"Gentleman's old, looks frail, might go off suddenly. What then? Friends
turn up, always do when you're dead, you know. Well, what of it? Less
money in the funds than was reckoned; dear old gentleman doesn't cut up
as well as they hoped! And meanwhile our friend B----! Does it dawn on
you at all, from our friend B----'s point of view, Sergeant? I may be
wrong, but that's my provisional conjecture. The question remains how
he's got the old gent into the game, doesn't it?"

Precisely the point to which the Sergeant's mind also had turned! The
knowledge which he possessed--that half of the secret--and which his
companion did not, might be very material to a solution of the problem;
the Sergeant did not mean to share it prematurely, without necessity, or
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