Wallie nodded. "Leave him there for the time being." He swung through the door and headed for the upset living room. Had Penelope seen Wallie in his present mood, she would have revised her opinion of him in a hundred ways. He walked with a purposeful air instead of the familiar sauntering gait; his eyes, generally half-closed in boredom, were wide and divided by a perpendicular frown-crease on his forehead. And those eyes were hard. His hands were clenched with such intensity that the well-cared-for fingernails bit into the palms ... hard fists in place of hands that strummed soft tunes of romance on a guitar. The soft, full-lipped mouth was gone, and in its place there was the same hard line that Bryant Cavendish showed when angry.
Wallie was indeed a different person. A fop no longer; instead, a man of purpose with cruel ruthlessness in every feature. He went through the living room without a pause and halted only when he reached the kitchen. He closed the door without a slam.
Jeb sat with a woebegone expression on a heavy chair. Sawtell, as bland as ever, stood beside him, holding a heavy gun in one hand. At the sight of Wallie, Sawtell spoke. "He started to make some complaints a little while ago, an' I tapped him on the head. I don't think we'll hear any more from him."
Wallie glanced at his lean brother. There was a cut somewhere beneath the stringy hair on the left side of Jeb's skull. Blood, seeping from it, had dribbled down his cheek and stained his collar. Jeb's eyes held an unvoiced but pathetic plea. They resembled those of a hog-tied calf suffering the torment of a branding iron.
Wallie said, "Better gag an' tie him. I'll decide later what's to be done."
Sawtell nodded, dropped his pistol in a holster, and proceeded with the tying, while Jeb, who knew that a voiced complaint would simply mean another crack on the head, made no resistance.
Lonergan sat on the edge of the kitchen table, casually working on his fingernails with a carving knife. He glanced up, a question mark in his expression.
There had been two others locked in the vault beneath the living room. They, too, were present in the kitchen. Lombard and Vince, sullen, and dripping muttered curses as well as sweat, stood side by side, leaning against the wall with half-filled whisky glasses in their hands.
"Are you sure," began Wallie, "none of you knows who that masked man is?" He glanced from one to another, receiving negative headshakes.
"All I know about him," grumbled Lombard, "is that I spent a hell of a night in that damned wet cellar, an' I'm goin' to square it with him."