“Yes. I was careful to finish that up yesterday. That was why the butler asked me to supper in the servants’ hall. I made a hit with all of them belowstairs.”
Smith sat for a long while thinking. “All right,” he said finally. “I will have a look at things. You had better go back to your old job at the Ridgeway field. Say you have been off because you were sick. And put down a note of every scratch and dent and seam on that dirigible of theirs so you can reproduce it. Remember one thing. There are powerful forces back of us, but all they want is the papers that will sooner or later go across in that dirigible.
“What we want is money, and I tell you, men, if this thing goes through, it will bring us millions. Just that: millions!”
A sort of stifled groan of covetousness went up from the listeners.
“If we succeed there will never be a time when we will any of us have to do another stroke of work. If we fail, it will mean death. Fail? Why, you won’t dare to fail! I will kill any man of you with my own hand if he shows the white feather.”
He laughed, and Lawrence thought he heard the rattles of the coiled snake ready to spring. The men listened in silence. Lawrence wondered if his face carried the same chill as his words and voice.
After a pause, one of the men spoke. “I think we are all taking big chances,” he said. “All I object to is working in the dark. Here we are working and plotting, killing if necessary, all on the promise of immense rewards, yet you will not tell us where these rewards are hidden. It all rests on your word.”
“Did I ever fail you?” asked Smith violently, striking his hand on his knee. “What about the jewel robbery in Paris? The diamonds in New York? Did I even send them to Amsterdam for recutting before showing them to you, and weighing them up? Was there not a fair division when the job was done? You thankless dogs, you would be picking pockets if I had not taken charge of you!”
“That is all right, Chief,” said the big man, “but it would give us a good deal more interest if we could know where all this money is being kept.”
Smith laughed. “I suppose you want to know so if I should get a tap on the head myself some night you could go after it. Isn’t that about it?”