“Yes, sir. Would you be kind enough to accept our invitation—the fourth, dear Mr. Merriwether—to join us at 777 Fifth Avenue—right here, sir—and answer one question? Please listen carefully to what I am saying: You don't have to go. Moreover, if you should go you don't have to answer any question. We would not, for worlds, compel you. But, for your own sake, for the sake of your father's peace of mind and of the Merriwether fortune, for the sake of your happiness in this world and in the next; for all that all the Merriwethers hold most dear—come with me and, if you are very wise, answer the question that will be asked you by the wisest man in all the world.”
“He must be a regular Solomon—” began Tom, but the man held up the glass and went on, very earnestly:
“Listen, please! If you decide to accept our invitation I shall spill this acid in the street and I shall give you this revolver. I repeat, you do not have to answer the question. You will not be harmed or molested. I pledge you my word. Will you, in return, give me yours to follow me at once into 777, and that you will not shoot unless you sincerely think you are in danger?”
Tom Merriwether looked at the pale-faced man a moment. He was willing to take his chances with that face. Also, he could not otherwise find the solution of this puzzling affair. Therefore he said: “Yes. I give you my word.”
Instantly the pale-faced man with the high forehead laid the revolver on the seat beside young Mr. Merriwether and withdrew from the cab. Tom saw him spill the fuming acid into the gutter. The burly javelin-man took himself off. The temptation to use the butt of the revolver on the clerical-garbed man with the earnest eyes came to Tom, but he saw in a flash that if he should do such a thing he would be compelled in self-defense to tell a story utterly unbelievable.
Moreover, the pale-faced man was a slender little chap of middle age and no match for big Tom Merriwether. So, assuring himself that the revolver was in truth loaded and that it worked, he put it in his pocket, kept his grasp on it there, and got out of the taxicab. His one impelling motive now was curiosity. Afraid? With the pistol and his muscles and his youth, on Fifth Avenue, at two-thirty in the afternoon?
The pale-faced man, the empty glass in one hand, walked toward the door of 777 without so much as turning his head. Tom followed.
The door was opened by a man in livery who took Mr. Merriwether's hat and cane. Tom saw in the furnishings of the house—complete with that curious unhuman completeness of a modern hotel—the kind of furnishings that interior decorators usually sell to first-generation rich on their arrival at Fifth Avenue residenceship. The furniture had every qualification possessed by furniture in order not to suggest a home to live in. Wherefore Tom, whose mind always worked quickly, reasoned to himself:
“Rented for the occasion to the man who has made me come to him.”
Also Tom noticed four men-servants, all of them well built and all of them owning faces that somehow were not servant faces. The revolver, which had seemed amply sufficient outside, seemed less so within the house. Supposing he killed one—or even two—the other two would down him in an affray. He tightened his grip on the revolver and planned and rehearsed a shooting affair in which four men in livery were disabled with four shots. A great pity E. H. Merriwether was such a very rich man—a great pity for his son Tom.