"Take them with you—better get them wrapped up here and now. You can toss them into a ditch anywhere."
Hammond obeyed.
Ten minutes afterward the two men left the room, carrying the packages of loot and the bundle containing the aviator's uniform. They descended to the courtyard in the rear of the house. Here was a small garden, with a fountain in its centre. Behind this were the stables, which had long been disused as such, and which were now occupied only by the car of Gramont.
It was with undisguised relief that Gramont now saw the stuff actually out of the house. Within the last few hours he had become intensely afraid of Jachin Fell. Concentrating himself upon the man, picking up information guardedly, he had that day assimilated many small items which increased his sense of peril from that quarter. Straws, no more, but quite significant straws. Gramont realized clearly that if the police ever searched his rooms and found this loot, he would be lost. There could be no excuse that would hold water for a minute against such evidence.
In the garage, Hammond switched on the lights of the car. By the glow they disposed their burdens in the luggage compartment of the tonneau, which held them neatly. The car was a large twelve-cylinder, four-passenger Nonpareil, which Gramont had picked up in the used-car market. Hammond had tinkered it into magnificent shape, and loved the piece of mechanism as the very apple of his eye.
The luggage compartment closed and locked, they returned into the house and dismissed the affair as settled.
Upon the following morning Gramont, who usually breakfasted en pension with his hostess, had barely seated himself at the table when he perceived the figure of Hammond at the rear entrance of the dining room. The chauffeur beckoned him hastily.
"Come out here, cap'n!" Hammond was breathing heavily, and seemed to be in some agitation. "Want to show you somethin'!"
"Is there anything important?" Gramont hesitated. The other regarded him with a baleful countenance.
"Important? Worse'n that!"