"I don't—know," said Harry. "Yes, I—I fancy it was through a window."
"What did you come for?"
"I wanted to—get something."
There was an instant's pause. Then his questioner came forward with a cat-like tread. His free hand busied itself in deft exploration. "No gun on him," he said.
Something like a chuckle came from behind the mask. "I reckon he's telling the truth, but he's a new one and we scared about all out of his head there ever was in it!"
The other turned one side to where a heavy portière screened an alcove, parted the curtains and set a chair in the hidden space. He pointed to it. "Sit there," he gruffly commanded, and to the man in the mask he added, "Get on with your part of the job. We won't take no risks—I'll take care of him!"
Harry sat down. The dream-like fragments at which he had been grasping were gone now into thin air, and out of the misty limbo the past was growing back: the note he had received, the smashed wall-cabinet, the fiery drink that scorched his throat, his mad masquerade, the boarding of the train at the station, the friendly, stupifying flash, then flight, on and on—and then, this lighted room, the safe, the levelled weapons! Into what sordid drama of the under-world had he wandered?
He flinched at the pressure of a cold steel ring against his temple—the man with the sand-coloured hair was "taking care" of him. The latter leaned forward and peered searchingly into his face. "Haven't I seen you before, somewheres?" he asked.
"Who knows?" said Harry. He had answered that look by one that, even as he spoke, had opened to strange intelligence. The stocky frame, the small red-rimmed eyes, the up-thrust, wiry hair belonged to his client of that far away trial, the man whom he had sent to a convict's cell and who now, by route of ball and stripe, had fled to the dismal demesne of habitual criminality! "Who knows!" Paddy the Brick had not now the piteous, shrinking look that had been turned to his counsel in the courtroom! The manhood was gone from the mottled features, which now wore the furtive look of the hunted, the sign-manual of cunning, incorrigibility and debauch.
Paddy the Brick withdrew his eyes. The involuntary question had passed. There was, after all, little in the smooth-shaven countenance of the man he guarded to suggest a bearded face that his memory searched for.