"Eighty-nine thousand dollars," the young man groaned.
"I'll write you a cheque to-morrow morning," Pamela promised. "Will that do, Mr. Fischer?"
"It is the last thing I desire," was the calm reply.
"Really! Well, perhaps now you will come to the point. Perhaps you will tell me what it is that you do want?"
"Stolen property," Fischer announced deliberately—"stolen property, however, to which I have a greater right than you."
She laughed at him mockingly.
"I think not, Mr. Fischer," she said. "You really don't deserve it, you know."
"And why not?"
"Just see how you have bungled! You bait the trap, the poor man walks into it, and you allow another to forestall you. Not only that, but you actually allow Japan to come into the game, and but for Mr. Lutchester's appearance we might both of us have been left planté là. No, Mr. Fischer! You don't deserve the formula, and you shall not have it. I'll pay my brother's debt to you in dollars—no other way."
"Dollars," Mr. Fischer told her sternly, "will never buy the forged transfer. Dollars will never keep your brother out of the city police court or Sing Sing afterwards. There isn't much future for a young man who has been through it."