"I don't know what I hope, Mort. I'm rather dazed with the unexpectedness of all this. Let's see what you took from their pockets."
A large diamond brooch, a string of fine pearls, and a bag of wonderful polished emeralds.
"Mort, the man couldn't help it. Why, here's a fortune for a prince; and yet he remained here for more. Well, he's gone; poor beggar."
They burrowed into the suit-cases and trunks. A dark green bottle came to light, Forbes took out the cork and carelessly sniffed. A great black wave of dizziness swept over him, and he would have fallen but for Crawford. The bottle fell. Crawford put Forbes out into the hall and ran back for the bottle, sensing a slight dizziness himself. He recognized the odor. It was Persian. He and Mason had run across it unpleasantly, once upon a time, in Teheran. He was not familiar with the chemistry of the concoction. He corked the bottle tightly. Forbes came in groggily.
"Well! Did you ever see such an ass, Crawford? To open a strange bottle like that and sniff at it!"
"Here's an atomizer. They must have used that. Never touched their victims."
"It evaporates quickly, though. But the effect on a sleeping person would be long. Now, who the deuce is this chap Webb? A confederate?"
"Still dizzy, eh? No; Thomas is a dupe. Don't you get it? He's Lord Monckton. Come on; we'll go down and straighten out the kinks."
So they went down-stairs. And Forbes tells me that when Thomas acknowledged his identity, Kitty did not fall on his neck. Instead, she walked up to him, burning with fury: so pretty that Forbes almost fell in love with her, then and there.
"So! You pretended to be poor, and entered my home to make play behind our backs! Despicable! We took you in without question, generously, kindly, and treated you as one of us; and all the while you were laughing in your sleeve!"