The plan couldn’t succeed, he told himself again and again, but Eve wouldn’t admit defeat.
‘What have we got to lose?’ she had asked patiently. ‘If this man says it won’t work, then we can drop the idea, but if he has the nerve to go through with it, and if he pulls it off, it’s a half a million in your pocket.’
That was the only argument that kept Kile in the running. A half a million! But if Baird turned the plan down, Kile would be relieved. Of course he would hate to let such a sum slip through his fingers, but the danger and the risks he would be involved in if Baird went ahead frightened him.
Up to now he had managed to concentrate on the prize, but now that Baird would be here at any minute, he could think of nothing but the risks.
‘This fel a won’t do it,’ he jerked out suddenly, speaking what was in his mind before he could stop himself. ‘I’ve been considering your plan, Eve. It — it won’t work. It can’t work!’
She turned her head and looked at him. She looked tired and uneasy. She didn’t think the plan would work, either. She thought it was the craziest, the most dangerous idea Adam had yet thought of, but he had said it would work, and she knew from past experience that once Adam had made up his mind about anything, no one or nothing would stop him. If she backed out now, or even encouraged Kile to back out, she knew instinctively that she had seen the last of her brother. In her more rational moments she knew it would be the best thing that could happen to her, but she also knew she was fooling herself: life without Adam would be no life at all.
‘Let him judge,’ she said. ‘To hear you talk, Preston, I’m beginning to think you don’t want the money.’
Kile drank some of his highball.
‘The risk wil be frightful,’ he mut ered. ‘Of course I want the money, but…’
‘I don’t see what risk you run. This man Baird wil shoulder the risk.’