“Nix!” said Laroque, in a vicious sneer. “Not till the job’s done! D’ye think I’m going to spend half an hour cracking a safe and take a chance of missing any bets? We’ve got the coin all right, but there ought to be one or two of Sonnino’s sparklers lying around in some of these drawers, and—”
There was a click of an electric-light switch, a cry from Clarie Archman, the inner room was ablaze with light, and—Jimmie Dale had edged forward again out of the hallway—Sonnino, revolver in hand, was standing just over the threshold facing Gentleman Laroque and the assistant district attorney’s son.
Then silence—a silence of seconds that were as minutes. And then Gentleman Laroque laughed gratingly.
“Hello, Sonnino!” he said coolly. “A little late, aren’t you? You’ve kept me stalling for the last five minutes. Know my friend—Mr. Martin Moore, alias Mr. Clarie Archman? Clarie, this is Signor Niccolo Sonnino, the proprietor of this joint.”
And then to Jimmie Dale, where before his mind had groped in darkness to reconcile apparently incongruous details, in a flash there came the light. The “plant” was a little more intricate, a little more cunning, a little more hellish—that was all!
The boy, white to the lips, was swaying on his feet, grasping at the table in the centre of the room. He looked from one to the other, a miserable, dawning understanding in his eyes.
“You—you know my name?” His voice was scarcely audible.
“Sure!” said Laroque—and yawned insolently.
“So!” purred Sonnino, in excellent English. “Is it so! A thief! The son of the so-honest Mister Attorney—a thief!”
“It’s a lie!” The boy’s hands, clenched, were raised above his head, and then shaken almost maniacally in Gentleman Laroque’s face. “It’s a lie! I—I don’t understand, but—but you two, you devils, are together in this!”