“Tell him to look sharp,” he said. “It’s not so late but that there may be people in here yet.”
Cawdor crossed the room with the plans, and laid them down before the writing table. Rounceby rose to his feet and lit a cigar. Marnstam walked to the further window and back again. They stood side by side. Rounceby’s whole frame seemed to have stiffened with some new emotion.
“There’s something wrong, Jim,” Marnstam whispered softly in his ear. “You’ve got the old lady in your pocket?”
“Yes!” Rounceby answered thickly, “and, by Heavens, I’m going to use it!”
“Don’t shoot unless it’s the worst,” Marnstam counselled. “I shall go out of that window, into the tree, and run for the river. But bluff first, Jim—bluff for your life!”
There were swinging doors leading into the room from the hotel side, and a small door exactly opposite which led to the residential part of the place. Both of these doors were opened at precisely the same moment. Through the former stepped two strong looking men in long overcoats, and with the unmistakable appearance of policemen in plain clothes. Through the latter came John Dory! He walked straight up to the two men. It spoke volumes for his courage that, knowing their characters and believing them to be in desperate straits, he came unarmed.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I hold warrants for your arrest. I will not trouble you with your aliases. You are known to-day, I believe, as James Rounceby and Richard Marnstam. Will you come quietly?”
Marnstam’s expression was one of bland and beautiful surprise.
“My dear sir,” he said, edging, however, a little toward the window—“you must be joking! What is the charge?”
“You are charged with the wilful murder of a young man named Victor Franklin,” answered Dory. “His body was recovered from Longthorp Tarn this afternoon. You had better say nothing. Also with the theft of certain papers known to have been in his possession.”