“You are perhaps right,” he said regretfully, “although I should much like to hear about this little matter of life insurance while I am here.”
“Indeed, monsieur,” Annette declared, “I know nothing. There is nothing which I can tell monsieur.”
Mr. Sabin suddenly leaned forward. His gaze was compelling. His tone was low but terrible.
“Annette,” he said, “obey me. Send Emil here.”
The woman trembled, but she did not move. Mr. Sabin lifted his forefinger and pointed slowly to the door. The woman’s lips parted, but she seemed to have lost the power of speech.
“Send Emil here!” Mr. Sabin repeated slowly.
Annette turned and left the room, groping her way to the door as though her eyesight had become uncertain. Mr. Sabin lit a cigarette and looked for a moment carefully into the small liqueur glass out of which he had drunk.
“That was unwise,” he said softly to himself. “Just such a blunder might have cost me everything.”
He held it up to the light and satisfied himself that no dregs remained. Then he took from his pocket a tiny little revolver, and placing it on the table before him, covered it with his handkerchief. Almost immediately a door at the farther end of the room opened and closed. A man in dark clothes, small, unnaturally pale, with deep-set eyes and nervous, twitching mouth, stood before him. Mr. Sabin smiled a welcome at him.
“Good-morning, Emil Sachs,” he said. “I am glad that you have shown discretion. Stand there in the light, please, and fold your arms. Thanks. Do not think that I am afraid of you, but I like to talk comfortably.”