“He won’t come easy,” growled Brown.
Smith was angry. He brought his fist down on the table with a bang.
“Bring him if you have to carry him!” he said in a low, hissing tone. And O’Brien, listening, knew why Lawrence had called him the Rattlesnake. Then with a muttered curse Smith swept off his broad hat, and flinging it across the room, leaned back in his chair. Looking down full in the upturned face, O’Brien involuntarily gave a violent start. Instantly there was a crackle and a piece of plaster half the size of the turret came down with a crash. It missed hitting Smith by a hair and surrounded him with a cloud of dust, but he did not start. Instead, with the quickness of light, he flashed an automatic from his pocket, and covered the leg he saw lying along the beam above him. Then getting the direction of a man’s body as the dust cleared, he aimed full at O’Brien’s body and drawled, “Come down!”
“Sure!” said O’Brien obligingly. “The jig bein’ up, I will that!”
He pushed the useless trap aside and swung down to the table, someone snatching off the bottle and glass as he did so.
They did not even make a move to seize him. The odds were too great in their favor. He jumped off the table and stood looking at the group of astonished villains, then his eyes turned back to Smith and sneered.
“I will say I never suspected you!” he said. “Of all the double-faced, low, lyin’, sneakin’ scoundrels, you are the worst!”
“Don’t make your end harder than it needs to be,” warned the man Smith. “Keep a civil tongue in your head and hand over your revolver. Search him, but don’t kill him,” he added, as O’Brien struck out fiercely at the first man who moved toward him.
Someone in the rear flung a rope over his head and instantly his ankles were bound and a gag inserted between his lips. O’Brien realized that a struggle was worse than useless. He saw them take away the papers he had found up in the ceiling, and a moment later from the inner pocket came the precious letter from Mr. Ridgeway. O’Brien bitterly reflected that he should have destroyed it. Smith read his thought and laughed.
“Never, never carry important documents around with you,” he said as he opened it and read the clear, concise instructions. Nodding, he placed it in his pocket. “Well, Brown, it wasn’t so hard to get him here, was it? Is he securely tied?” He glanced at his watch.