Colonel Starbottle's Client by Bret Harte
page 12 of 193 (06%)
page 12 of 193 (06%)
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"Did you keep a copy of that letter?" asked the Colonel, straitening his
mask-like mouth. "No," said Corbin moodily. "What was the good? I know'd she'd got the letter,--and she did,--for that is what she wrote back." He laid another letter before the Colonel, who hastily read a few lines and then brought his fat white hand violently on the desk. "Why, d--n it all, sir, this is BLACKMAIL! As infamous a case of threatening and chantage as I ever heard of." "Well," said Corbin, dejectedly, "I don't know. You see she allows that I murdered Frisbee to get hold of his claim, and that I'm trying to buy her off, and that if I don't come down with twenty thousand dollars on the nail, and notes for the rest, she'll prosecute me. Well, mebbe the thing looks to her like that--mebbe you know I've got to shoulder that too. Perhaps it's all in the same line." Colonel Starbottle for a moment regarded Corbin critically. In spite of his chivalrous attitude towards the homicidal faculty, the Colonel was not optimistic in regard to the baser pecuniary interests of his fellow-man. It was quite on the cards that his companion might have murdered his partner to get possession of the claim. It was true that Corbin had voluntarily assumed an unrecorded and hitherto unknown responsibility that had never been even suspected, and was virtually self-imposed. But that might have been the usual one unerring blunder of criminal sagacity and forethought. It was equally true that he did not look or act like a mean murderer; but that was nothing. However, there was no evidence of these reflections in the Colonel's face. Rather he suddenly beamed with an excess of politeness. "Would you--er--mind, Mr. |
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