Baca spoke at last slowly and thoughtfully.
“Bennett, you have good standard securities in the El Paso National, pledged for a comparatively small amount, as I happen to know. You can sell them by wire and have the money here by the last train on Monday. That’s what you’d better do. Personally I am not inclined——”
“Here is too much talk,” said Scanlon. “Cash or smash!”
Bennett threw up his hand in a gesture of despair.
“I’ll get it on Monday. Let me go home.”
“There now! I knew you would do the right thing if we forced you to!” Baca went to the window. “It is not raining hard; so perhaps you had better go home, as you suggest, Mr. Bennett. You seem fatigued. But the rest of you will stay with me for the night, I trust. I have good beds; here is wine and fire; and we can have a quiet rubber. No stakes, of course.” He twisted his mouth and cocked an eyebrow at Beck.
“I’m gone!” announced Beck. He brushed by without a glance at the others, jerked his hat and slicker from the rack, and flung out into the night.
“Now who would suspect the urbane and lovable Beck of being so sensitive?” asked Baca, rocking on his feet. “We shall not have our whist game after all. You two will stay, however? Yes? That’s good!” said the host. “Have a glass of wine before you go, Bennett. No? Let me help you on with your raincoat, then. You have your rubbers?” He held the door open. “Good-night!”
Chapter VIII
BECK did not take his way to his own rooms despite the lateness of the hour. He followed the street at his left, the one that led to Bennett’s home. A little later the door opened and Bennett took the same path at a slower gait.