He recoiled a step, with a queer, hissing intake of breath.
"Swift," he muttered, "I have half a mind to make you prove your words."
"Do," said I, grimly. "I would like nothing better."
He stared at me so long that it gave me an uncanny feeling. I broke the silence with a blunt demand.
"Burke, where 's that ruby?"
"Don't try to browbeat me," he said through his teeth. "Please understand that you are not dealing with a criminal, and I don't propose to be bulldozed by any fat-witted sleuths."
I laughed in his face.
"Maybe it will interest you to know that I have wit enough to contrast your secretive manner with Maillot's willingness to talk, and to draw the one consistent inference therefrom."
There is a nervous affliction of the eyes, called by pathologists nystagmus, which is characterized by a perpetual weaving to and fro of the eyeballs; it is impossible for the unfortunate victim to fix his look upon a given point without the greatest effort. When the attention of such a one is not centred the swaying of his eyes goes on incessantly.
So it was now with Burke's pale orbs and his lean death's head. He seemed to be searching, forever feverishly searching, for something that he could not find. There was something positively repulsive about the man in this new guise, although the change was so subtle that I was unable to define it. At last he spoke.