“See that letter!” declared the Munition Magnate, closing his fist and banging the table. “See it? D’ye see it?”
Drew widened his eyes at the outburst. He crossed his legs and nodded.
“It’s blackmail!” Stockbridge snarled. “Rank-scented blackmail of the cheapest order.”
“A threat of some kind?”
“Threat? Yes—a threat, in a way. It’s clever, but it won’t work with me!”
Drew recrossed his legs. He touched his short-cropped mustache with the fingers of his right hand. He coughed as in suggestion. His brows lifted as he studied the envelope from a distance.
Stockbridge snatched it up suddenly. He slapped it against the edge of the polished table. He turned and found a cigar to his liking out of many in a humidor beneath a smaller table at the right of his chair. He bit on this cigar, struck a match, and dragged in the smoke with deep inhalings before he turned and opened the envelope, exposing a letter which he rapped with the knuckles of his left hand.
“I’ll beg to be excused,” he said half-apologetically. “I’m not myself. This letter, you know. I want you to ferret it out. I want you to find out who sent it, and make him or her pay. Make them pay in full!”
“May I see it?”
Stockbridge hesitated. His eyes ran across the paper. His lips curled in an ugly, thin-visaged smile which wrinkled his yellow face. “See it? Yes!” he snapped, volplaning the sheet across the table with a vicious jerk of his wrist.