“What’s—what’s the game?” he stammered.
“This—to begin with!” said Jimmie Dale grimly—and, stooping, picked up from the floor a small black satchel, the object that English Dick had dropped on entering the room. “Go over to that table!” ordered Jimmie Dale curtly.
The man obeyed.
“Sit down!” Jimmie Dale was clipping off his words in cold menace.
Again the man obeyed.
Jimmie Dale, his back to the door as he faced the other across the table, snapped open the bag. It was full to the top with banknotes and securities. Under his mask his lips curled in a hard, forbidding smile. He took from his pocket the package of the bank’s securities he had found in the drawer of Forrester’s desk, and laid it in silence on the table beside the satchel; beside this again, still in silence, he placed the bottle that had contained the hydrocyanic acid, and—after an instant’s pause—spread out the sheet of note paper bearing Forrester’s forged signature.
The man’s face, white before, had gone a livid gray.
“W-what do you want?” he whispered.
“I want you to write another confession.” There was a deadly monotony in Jimmie Dale’s voice, as he tapped the paper with the muzzle of his automatic. “This one is out of date.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” faltered English Dick. “So help me, honest to God, I don’t!”