"And what happened about it?"
"He found out, my lord. I dunno how, but he did. Threatened to report me. Well, of course, that'd have been the end of me. Out of a job, and who'd a-given me work after that? So I 'ad to pay him what he said, to stop his tongue."
"Pay him?"
"That's blackmail," said Kirk, coming out of his stupefaction with a pounce. He spoke the words as though they were, somehow, a solution of this incredible situation. "It's an indictable offence. Blackmail. And compounding a felony."
"Call it what you like, sir--it was life and death to me. Five bob a week he been bleeding me for these last two years."
"Good God!" said Peter, disgusted.
"And I tell you, my lord, when I came in this room this morning and 'eard as he was dead, it was like a breath of 'Eaven to me.... Bu
