'
Slinkton took out a snuff-box, took a pinch of snuff, and laughed.
'But see here,' said Beckwith, never looking away, never raising
his voice, never relaxing his face, never unclenching his hand.
'See what a dull wolf you have been, after all! The infatuated
drunkard who never drank a fiftieth part of the liquor you plied
him with, but poured it away, here, there, everywhere - almost
before your eyes; who bought over the fellow you set to watch him
and to ply him, by outbidding you in his bribe, before he had been
at his work three days - with whom you have observed no caution,
yet who was so bent on ridding the earth of you as a wild beast,
that he would have defeated you if you had been ever so prudent -
that drunkard whom you have, many a time, left on the floor of this
room, and who has even let you go out of it, alive and undeceived,
when you have turned him over with your foot - has, almost as
often, on the same night, within an hour, within a few minutes,
watched you awake, had his hand at your pillow when you were
asleep, turned over your papers, taken samples from your bottles
and packets of powder, changed their contents, rifled every secret
of your life!'
He had had another pinch of snuff in his hand, but had gradually
let it drop from between his fingers to the floor; where he now
smoothed it out with his foot, looking down at it the while.
'That drunkard,' said Beckwith, 'who had free access to your rooms
at all times, that he might drink the strong drinks that you left
in his way and be the sooner ended, holding no more terms with you
than he would hold with a tiger, has had his master-key for all
your locks, his test for all your poisons, his clue to your cipher-
writing.
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