He smiled into the face of the man whose good name he might have cleared, but he gave no sign. So hard and callous a nature was impervious to kindness. Anybody who did a kind action for its own sake was a fool in Balmayne's eyes.He looked for a moment at the spot where the deaths happened, from which the victims were carried away, and then suddenly asked in a kinder tone of voice:
Director
Prout was surprised. Not that he ought to have been surprised after the strange things that had come in his way professionally. The way he conveyed the impression that all this was news to him was artistic. He asked a score of questions, he made voluminous notes solemnly in a large book.Balmayne murmured something more and closed his eyes. When the nurse came up to him an hour later he was dead. He had passed away quietly in his sleep. How he came by his death, and who his assailants were nobody knew. There were many dark passages in that dark life known only to itself and its Maker."How did that come about?"