Wingate shook his head.
"I regret to say that I should not feel justified in letting one of you out of my sight. In the event of your seeing reason, the telephone will be at your disposal, and a verbal message by its means could be confirmed by all three of you. I imagine that your office would sell on such instructions."
Phipps, who had been sitting during the last few minutes in a state almost of torpor, began to show signs of his old vigorous self. He shook his head firmly.
"This is a matter which need not be discussed," he declared. "You have taken our breath away, Wingate. Your amazing assurance has made it difficult for us to answer you coherently. I am only now beginning to realise that you are in earnest in this idiotic piece of melodrama, but if you are—so are we.—You can starve us or shoot us or suffocate us, but we shall not sell wheat.—By God, we shan't!"
The man seemed for a moment to swell,—his eyes to flash fire. Wingate shrugged his shoulders.
"I accept your defiance," he announced. "Let us commence our tryst."
Dredlinton struck the table with his fist, Phipps' brave words seemed to have struck an alien note of fear in his fellow prisoner.
"I will not submit!" he exclaimed. "My health will not stand it!—Phipps!—Rees!"
There was meaning in his eyes as well as in his tone, a meaning which
Phipps put brutally into words.
"It's no good, Dredlinton," he warned him. "We are going to stick it out, and you've got to stick it out with us. But," he added, glaring at Wingate, "remember this. Only half an hour before I was taken, Scotland Yard rang up to tell me that they thought they had a clue as to Stanley's disappearance. You risk five years' penal servitude by this freak."