"I am listening," said Gregory rather stolidly.
As if by common consent the other three rose from the table. "Come to the fire," Deschamps said, speaking now in a low voice, "and you shall hear everything."
They sat round the fire very close together, and, looking round as if to be quite certain that there was no one lurking in the recesses of the workshop, Deschamps began:
"Mon ami," he said, putting his hand upon Basil's arm, "we are going to take a journey, you and I."
"A journey?" Gregory said.
"To Monte Carlo," Deschamps replied.
Then there was a silence; Basil felt his brain whirling. "What do you mean?" he said at length.
"I mean this," Deschamps answered, "that fortune is within our grip at last, that we can now make as much money as we like, enough to conduct all our experiments and get out perfect models of our invention to place before the world. I will explain."
He threw away the cigarette which he had been smoking and began to outline a plan so novel, a conspiracy so absolutely without precedent in the history of the world, that his three listeners remained spell-bound.
"Chance, and chance alone," he began, "has placed the opportunity for the most sensational coup of modern times in our hands. In the first place, chance—the Spirit of Fortune, or what you will—led us to this room in which we are sitting. The Messieurs Carnet, as you know, have for years been employed in making roulette wheels for the Casino at Monte Carlo. As you have also heard, they have resolved to give up their occupation. The tragedy which has saddened their lives has been directly due to the existence of the great gambling establishment. Both our friends would give anything to be revenged upon the organisation which has wrecked their hopes, and owing to the existence of which their so beloved nephew met his untimely death."