"What's the odds?"
"Yes, of course I'm jolly sorry for Lord Sturton, and all that; but, after all, he's got pots of money hasn't he? And all he'd do would be to lock the emerald up in some nasty old safe, and what's the good of that?… Whereas this film of Curt's is really important, poor boy. I know what I'd do if I were a man," she declared scornfully. "I'd take that nasty little Woodcock chap and torture him until he told. Or I'd lock him up somewhere, the way they did to that baron what's-his-name, in The Count of Monte Cristo, and not let him have anything to eat and hold soup under his nose and laugh ha-ha until he was willing to tell me. You men Bah! You make me tired."
She made a gesture of impatience.
"Young lady," said Morgan, "both your ruthlessness and your logic are scandalous. I have sometimes observed a similar phenomenon in my own wife. Aside from the practical impossibility of holding soup under the bug-powder king's nose and laughing ha-ha, there's the sporting element to consider. Don't say bah. The fact remains that we have pinched old Sturton's emerald and the responsibility — What the devil's that noise?"
He jumped a little. For some moments he had been conscious of a low, steady, hissing noise somewhere about him. In his present frame of mind, it sounded exactly like the sinister hissing which Dr. Watson had heard at midnight in the dark bedroom during the Adventure of the Speckled Band. It was, in fact, the Mermaid Automatic Bug-Powder Gun.
"Curt," said Peggy, whirling suspiciously, "what are you up to now?"
"Handy little gadget at that," declared Warren, in some admiration. His eyes were shining, and he bent absorbedly over the elaborate silver and enamel tube. It was a streamlined cylinder full of scrolls and flutings, with a complicated array of black buttons. From the nozzle a thin wide spray, as advertised, was flying out across the captain's papers on the centre table. Warren moved it about. "All the buttons are marked, you see. Here's "Spray" — that's what I've got on now. Then there's "Half Power" and "Full Power."…
Peggy put a hand over her mouth and began to gurgle. This unseemly mirth annoyed Morgan still more. Besides, the spray was peculiarly pungent.
"Turn the damn thing off!" he howled, as a thin spray began to glitter all about them. "No, don't turn it at the wardrobe, you fathead. Now you've got the captain's spare uniform. Turn it—"
"All right, all right," said Warren, rather testily. "You needn't get griped about it. I was only trying the thing out… All I've got to do, you see, is press this dingus and — What's the matter with the fool thing? Hey!"