The worthy user of it had cleaned and polished it up, so as to be
sure of its action, and re-oiled it. So the 'dog story' was exploded
almost at its birth. The rest was easy to follow up, and knowing the
position of things between Borkins and his master (from both sides, so to
speak), I began to put two and two together. Borkins has, this moment,
most agreeably told me that my answer to the sum is correct. But things
worked in well for him, I must say. That Sir Nigel should actually fire
a shot upon that very night was a stroke of pure luck for the servant who
hated him. And it made his chance of fabricating the whole plot against
Sir Nigel a good deal easier. Whether he would have stolen the revolver
had that shot at the Frozen Flames--for which Sir Nigel has been so
sorely tried--never been fired, I cannot say, but that doubtless would
have been the course he would have taken. Luck favoured him upon that
dreadful night--but now that luck has changed. His own action has been
his undoing. If he had not given vent to this feeling of hatred that he
cherished in his heart for a master who was of such different stuff of
which he himself was made, the whole infernal plot might never have been
revealed.
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