"Bah!" said Eckstein. "You fellows ought to have lived in the stone age, when a man pulled his enemy to pieces with his bare hands. If it comes to that, there are easier ways—and safer. A premature blast in a rock cut; a weak coupling-pin when he happens to be standing in the way of a pulling engine: they tell me he is always indifferent to his personal safety. But never mind the fashion of it; the point I'm making is that if everything else fails, Ford mustn't live to be the head-foreman of the outfit."
Penfield's face was ashen, and he was cravenly thankful that the lamplight was dim, and that his chair was in the shadow. This was more than he had bargained for; more by the price of a man's life.
Eckstein was lifting himself by painful inches from his chair. A silence as of the grave had fallen upon the two MacMorroghs. It was the senior partner who broke it.
"'Tis as ye say, Misther Eckstein. A man—a safe man, that'll do what he's told to do—will be at Ford's heels till this thing do be settled. And now for yourself: 'tis betther that ye kape dark. Four of us know that you're in the camp—no wan else need know. I've a room and a bed, and ye'll be nadin' the lasht, I'm thinking."
The two MacMorroghs were bestirring themselves, and Penfield was slipping through the door into the commissary when Eckstein's fingers closed upon his arm.
"Your part is to keep tab on the programme," he whispered "Get word instantly to Brian if there is any change. And if you weaken, Arthur, I'll promise you just one thing: I'll pull you in with the rest of us if I have to swear to a string of lies a mile long. Remember that."
Penfield escaped at length, and stumbled through the littered end-of-track yard to where the lighted windows of the Nadia marked the berth of the president's car. Out of the shadow of the car a man rose up and confronted him. It was Frisbie, and he asked a single question:
"Say, Penfield, who was that fellow who rode around to the MacMorroghs' back door just after dark?"
"It was Eckstein." The secretary let slip the name before he could lay hold of his discretion.
"Oh: all right That's all," said the engineer; and he vanished.