"And pray be so good as to tell me your reason for such a statement?"
"If you want it bluntly, because the young man now staying at Government House is no more the Marquis of Beckenham than I am. He is a fraud, an imposter, a cheat of the first water, put up to play his part by one of the cleverest scoundrels unhung."
"Mr. Hatteras, this is really going too far. I can quite understand your being jealous of his lordship, but I cannot understand your having the audacity to bring such a foolish charge against him. I for one must decline to listen to it. If he had been the fraud you make him out to be, how would his tutor have got those letters from his Grace the Duke of Glenbarth? Do you imagine his Excellency the Governor, who has known the family all his life, would not have found him out ere this? No, no, sir! It won't do! If you think so, who has schooled him so cleverly? Who has pulled the strings so wonderfully?"
"Why, Nikola to be sure!"
Had I clapped a revolver to the old gentleman's head, or had the walls opened and Nikola himself stepped into the room, a greater effect of terror and consternation could not have been produced in the old gentleman's face than did those five simple words. He fell back in his chair gasping for breath, his complexion became ashen in its pallor, and for a moment his whole nervous system seemed unstrung. I sprang to his assistance, thinking he was going to have a fit, but he waived me off, and when he had recovered himself sufficiently to speak, said hoarsely:
"What do you know of Dr. Nikola? Tell me for God's sake!—what do you know of him? Quick, quick!"
