"Get it said, then!" retorted Pratt.

"Not here," answered Parrawhite. "Come down by the quarry--nobody about
there."

"And suppose I don't?" asked Pratt.

"Then you'll be very sorry for yourself--tomorrow," replied Parrawhite.
"That's all!"

Pratt had already realized that this fellow knew something. Parrawhite's
manner was not only threatening but confident. He spoke as a man speaks
who has got the whip hand. And so, still growling, and inwardly raging
and anxious, he turned off with his companion into a track which lay
amongst the stone quarries. It was a desolate, lonely place; no house
was near; they were as much alone as if they had been in the middle of
one of the great moors outside the town, the lights of which they could
see in the valley below them. In the grey sky above, a waning moon gave
them just sufficient light to see their immediate surroundings--a
grass-covered track, no longer used, and the yawning mouths of the old
quarries, no longer worked, the edges of which were thick with gorse and
bramble. It was the very place for secret work, and Pratt was certain
that secret work was at hand.

"Now then!" he said, when they had walked well into the wilderness.
"What is it? And no nonsense!"

"You'll get no nonsense from me," sneered Parrawhite. "I'm not that
sort. This is what I want to say. I was in Eldrick's office last night
all the time you were there with old Bartle."