[it isn't a trap, simply what he saw as an appropriate way to deliver a courtesy warning. he has always had a strong love for drama and theatrics, as the pile of books will tell, so why let death stop that? the one he asked Scratch to look at is a worn copy of Shakespeare's King Lear, and it probably won't take him long to determine which passage Charles had intended for him to see:
I will have such revenges on you both, That all the world shall--I will do such things,-- What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be The terrors of the earth.]
no subject
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall--I will do such things,--
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.]