“Look here!” Larson turned suddenly. “You have a safe in your place, I suppose?”
Durant assented, trusting to luck.
“Well, I’d like you to take charge of my wad while I’m here,” went on the other. “I have a bit over sixty thousand, and—”
“Jumping Jerusalem!” ejaculated Durant, in stark amazement. “Sixty thousand dollars?” “In hundred-dollar bills, mostly—for spending on the Continent,” said Larson.
“I want to take care of my family there, buy ’em land, spend all I want, and so forth.”
“Good Lord, man, you must have cracked a bank!”
Larson chuckled. “No, not exactly. There’s been big money in liquor, you know. I made that sixty thousand, and a bit over, in three months, just to show! Well, if you’ll stow the coin away, I’ll feel better—I know these English servants, and I’d hate to trust ’em. While I can keep it under my eye, all right, but traveling here ain’t safe.”
Durant nodded. This request complicated the situation a bit. Beyond keeping Larson from being murdered, he had previously had little interest in the matter. Finding the man’s actual status, he had been cynically delighted at the game in prospect, since Makoff was likely to catch a Tartar. Now it seemed as though Larson would succeed in robbing himself—if Durant let the Russian know about the request.
He decided instantly to do no such thing. The outcome of the whole scheme was immaterial to him, though his sympathy was rather with Larson. Besides—why could not Larson be the man to put a bullet into Makoff? Possibilities here, but he would have to see Helen first. If Makoff were dead, the blackmail might only be transferred.
He threw over the whole problem as the car turned sharply out of the highway, between a pub and a brick wall, heading up the long hill of King’s Road, lined on either side with its walled English houses and gardens, dismal from the outside, comfortable and rich within, each one having that sense of privacy and ownership which means so little to the American, so much to his English cousin. Abruptly the car halted before a low house of gray brick, walled about, and Giles held open the door.