“Oh, you have, have you,” sneered Connor. He had seen the cupboard door behind Jimmy move ever so slightly.
Jimmy sat with his legs crossed on the chair that had been placed for him. The light overcoat he had worn over his evening dress lay across his knees. Connor knew the moment was at hand, and concentrated his efforts to keep his former comrade’s attentions engaged. He had guessed the meaning of Goyle’s absence from the room and the moving cupboard door. In his present position Jimmy was helpless.
Connor had been nervous to a point of incoherence on the way to the house. Now his voice rose to a strident pitch.
“You’re too clever, Jimmy,” he said, “and there are too many ‘musts’ about you to please us. We say that the girl has got to stay, and by —— we mean it!”
Jimmy’s wits were at work. The danger was very close at hand, he felt that. He must change his tactics. He had depended too implicitly upon Connor’s fear of him, and had reckoned without the “Borough Lot.” From which of these men did danger threaten? He took their faces in in one comprehensive glance. He knew them—he had their black histories at his finger-tips. Then he saw a coat hanging on the wall at the farther end of the room. He recognized the garment instantly. It was Goyle’s. Where was the owner? He temporized.
“I haven’t the slightest desire to upset anybody’s plans,” he drawled, and started drawing on a white glove, as though about to depart. “I am willing to hear your views, but I would point out that I have an equal interest in the young lady, Connor.”
He gazed reflectively into the palm of his gloved hand as if admiring the fit. There was something so peculiar in this apparently innocent action, that Connor started forward with an oath.
“Quick, Goyle!” he shouted; but Jimmy was out of his chair and was standing with his back against the cupboard, and in Jimmy’s ungloved hand was an ugly black weapon that was all butt and barrel.
He waved them back, and they shrank away from him.
“Let me see you all,” he commanded, “none of your getting behind one another. I want to see what you are doing. Get away from that coat of yours, Bat, or I’ll put a bullet in your stomach.”