The passengers were shuffling their feet about, in a vain effort to touch the lost property. A young girl was giggling hysterically.
“Perhaps you put it in the wrong pocket, and didn’t look careful enough.”
“I looked, I looked,” exclaimed Alcatrante. “Do you think I would not know. See! I put it in this pocket, which now is empty.”
He thrust his hand into the pocket which he had indicated. Suddenly his expression changed to astonishment.
“Find it?” grinned the starter.
With the blankest of looks Alcatrante pulled the purse from his pocket. “It was not there two minutes ago,” he muttered.
“You’ve been dreamin’,” remarked the starter, opening the gate with a bang. “All out!”
Orme chuckled to himself. In a moment Alcatrante would realize how the purse had been replaced in his pocket, and he would be furious. Meantime Orme entered another elevator, to go back to the eighth floor, and, as he had expected, the minister followed him.
When they were outside the office of the Wallingham Company, Orme paused, his hand on the door. “Senhor Alcatrante,” he said, “this business must end. I shall simply have to call the police.”
“At your own risk,” said Alcatrante. Then an ugly light flashed in his eyes and his upper lip lifted above his yellow teeth. “You got the better of me there in the elevator,” he snarled. “You won’t get the better again.”