“Aha! How are you both?” the newcomer asked breezily. “Had to finesse to get off this evening; bridge party on at the house and a devil of a row over it, but it was worth it, I assure you! Great old diggings you have here, Storm! How is the real estate game, Holworthy?”
The latter responded while Storm went out to the pantry to perform certain functions with a cocktail shaker. When he returned he found that the irrepressible Millard had already plunged into the subject of the wager.
“Really, you know, in the interests of law and order you should drink to my victory, Storm!” the latter declared jovially.
“By all means!” Storm smiled. “For the good of the commonwealth as well as to avenge the memory of the man I knew at college, I hope that Horton’s murderers will be brought to justice; but as a mere matter of personal opinion, backed by fifty dollars, I do not believe that the authorities are equal to the task.”
Millard drank with a consciously superior air and then produced his wallet.
“Here’s my fifty to declare that they are!” he said.
“The murderers and the money?” Storm laughed.
“And the money!” retorted his guest.
“I say, I don’t like this transaction a little bit, at least as far as my part in it is concerned,” George objected. “Holding the stakes on a bet of this sort seems scarcely decent, to me. Jack Horton was my friend.”
Jokingly they overruled his scruples and went in to dinner; but from time to time Storm found himself eying Millard askance. The latter bore himself with an air of ill-concealed mystery which augmented his natural self-importance, and his knowing smile was irritating to a degree. More than once as the meal progressed he seemed on the point of volunteering a statement, but each time he checked himself, though Storm plied him assiduously with the contents of the cob-webbed bottles.