The stout, roundabout figure of this little man who spoke English with an accent, who loved the freedom, the customs, and the institutions of Great Britain, and who had waxed rich and prosperous because of the protection and many opportunities which the country or her possessions had given him, rolled round in the deep armchair in which he was seated, while his hand groped for a cut-glass tumbler standing on an adjacent table. The deep-set, cunning eyes saw none of the surrounding magnificence which the walls of his smoking-room displayed; for Mr. Carl Reitberg was deeply immersed, lost in thought, carried away by the brilliance of his inspiration.
"Yes," he reflected again, "a brilliant inspiration. Here was I in London—or rather, to put it correctly, here am I in London—hearing on every side tales of the airship, of her strength, of her swiftness, of her original design, capacity, and extraordinary power; and yet there is no way of moving, no means of arresting the world tour of the air vessel, no method of—er—er causing an unfortunate accident Then, when all seems to have gone badly for me, when, owing to my own stupid impulse, my desire to be applauded as a sportsman, the bank holds one hundred thousand pounds which I have deposited, without power of withdrawal, against the day when the ship returns, then, I say, difficulties suddenly fly. It is strange how a man's brain at last hits upon a solution."
In his delight he had begun to speak aloud, addressing his words to the four walls of the room, to the costly pictures attached to them, to the velvet curtains, the cigar cabinets, the table loaded with bric-à-brac, and to curios and valuables in general. In any case he had not included the only other occupant of the room, had never once turned his eyes in his direction, had seemed to have forgotten him utterly. But the man there, lounging placidly in a deep and luxurious armchair, smiling sardonically, and nursing a damaged arm which he wore in a sling, was listening intently. Once he scowled and growled something beneath his breath. And now that Carl Reitberg seemed to have finished he stole a look at him, and leaned over and coolly helped himself to a cigar which, by the breadth of the gilded band about it, might have cost a small fortune.
"A brilliant inspiration, eh?" he asked languidly, settling himself back in his chair when he had set his cigar going. "What?"
The words brought his host back to Mother Earth with a start. To speak the truth there was no love lost between Carl Reitberg and Adolf Fruhmann, for that rascal was the other inmate of this room. The pompous little owner of this magnificent establishment would have ignored his one-time accomplice had he not need of him. Now he put up with his presence as best he could. Not that Adolf Fruhmann was of much value at the moment; for an accident in the streets had left him with a broken arm, much to Carl's annoyance.
"That's what I was telling you," he answered savagely. "Here are you fool enough to get an arm broken, thereby rendering yourself helpless when it was a matter of arrangement between us that you were to act——"
"One moment; not so fast," came from the other. "You speak as if I'd asked that taxi driver to run me down, as if I enjoyed the suffering that's followed. Besides, if I'm helpless for the moment, and you've been fool enough to plant a hundred thousand pounds into a bank in such a way that you can't finger it till this challenge is settled, why, it's for you to move, you to risk your own skin, I'm thinking."
Certainly there was no love lost between them, and if Carl imagined that Adolf would cringe and whine when in his presence, the events of the past few days had entirely undeceived him. For Adolf had become a leech, a detestable fellow who clung to the man who desired to employ him. From that squalid tenement dwelling down by Whitechapel, he had removed himself to Carl Reitberg's luxurious mansion, and protest on that indignant gentleman's part had no effect.
"We've just got to sink or swim together," observed Adolf, with a scornful smile when his would-be benefactor flared out at him and bade him depart. "We're old chums, don't forget that, old partners, and—and there's a few who would like very much—very much indeed—to meet us."
It was a significant statement, and Adolf took no trouble to rob his words of the sinister threat which underlay them. From the meek, half-starved, down-at-heels ruffian, he had of a sudden, once he had been discovered by Carl, become a sleek, sardonic individual, sleeker perhaps for the fact that the best of London tailoring had turned him out in the latest of fashions. Indeed, in the well-dressed, or rather, somewhat over-dressed individual lolling in the deep armchair in Carl's room, it was hard to recognize the unkempt, unwashed rascal of but a few days earlier.