"Jimmie Turnbull
learned that you, Clymer, were to visit Colonel McIntyre on Monday
night, and he went there in disguise to find out if his suspicions
were correct. The investigation cost him his life."
Clymer, who had followed Rochester's statement, first with
bewilderment and then with rising wrath, found his voice.
"You drunken scoundrel!" he roared. "How dare you!"
"Dare!" Rochester laughed recklessly. "Jimmie kept his wits to the
last; his mind was clear; he recognized you in the prisoner's pen
and he tried to call you, but his palsied tongue could not say Ben,
but stuttered - B - b - b."
"And what did he wish to tell me?" gasped Clymer, down whose
colorless face perspiration trickled.
"Aye, what?" broke in Kent significantly.
"Jimmie may not have gotten the information he wished at your house,
Colonel McIntyre, but his presence there on Monday night showed the
forger he was in danger, and like the human snake he is, he poisoned
without warning. Don't move - Sylvester!"
With a backward spring Kent caught his clerk as he sped for the door.
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