“You worked for him. How came you to close up the offices so unexpectedly?”
“By my master’s orders.”
“Do you know he owes our company a great deal of money?”
At this the young Russian shrugged his shoulders.
“What have I to do with that? You made your bargain with him, not with me.”
“That is true, but if you are honest you will not mind telling me where he is.”
“Have I not said that I do not know?” The clerk hesitated and then squinted at Gilbert suggestively. “No, I cannot tell you where Ivan Snokoff is, but—but——”
“But what?”
“Sire, I am a poor man, and I have a wife and two children to support.”
“You are too young to have a wife and two children.”