“As you wish! It was my desire that you should stay with me to-night—there is big work and big money for all of you.”
The men were looking at one another uneasily.
“How long do you want us to stay?” asked Cuccini.
“To-night only; if you would not prefer . . .”
To-night would come the crisis. Oberzohn had realized this since the day dawned for him.
“We’ll stay—where do we sleep?”
For answer Oberzohn beckoned them from the room and they followed him into the laboratory. In the wall that faced them was a heavy iron door that opened into a concrete storehouse, where he kept various odds and ends of equipment, oil and spirit for his cars, and the little gas engine that worked a small dynamo in the laboratory and gave him, if necessary, a lighting plant independent of outside current.
There were three long windows heavily barred and placed just under the ceiling.
“Looks like the condemned cell to me,” grumbled Cuccini suspiciously.
“Are the bolts on the inside of a condemned cell?” asked Oberzohn. “Does the good warden give you the key as I give you?”