Mrs. Lancaster, her handsome face haggard, lay back in her chair and for a space of minutes remained perfectly motionless. At last her lips moved—
"Whatever happens, I shall have twenty-five thousand pounds."
CHAPTER XXII
As Bullard replaced the receiver, Flitch came slouching in.
"Couldn't help bein' a bit late, mister," he remarked. "Fog's awful to-night. Got lost more'n once."
"Fog that came out of a bottle, I suppose," said Bullard sarcastically.
For an instant resentment flamed on the hairy countenance, but Flitch seemed to get it under control and answered nothing. There was a certain change in the man's appearance. His hair and beard were freshly trimmed, and he had a cleanlier look than we have hitherto noticed; moreover, his expression had lost a little of its habitual sullen truculence.
"All right; sit down till I'm ready for you," said Bullard, and proceeded to clear his desk of a heap of newspapers. They were mostly Scottish journals of that and the previous day's dates. Earlier in the evening he had searched their news columns for a heading something like this: "Mysterious and Fatal Explosion in a Clydeside Mansion." Mrs. Lancaster's news had, of course, informed him that nothing of the kind had taken place, and had also raised doubts which he would have to examine later. Sufficient for the present that the Green Box plot had failed. Contrary to his calculations, the key had remained undiscovered; otherwise Alan Craig and Caw, who would surely have opened the box together, would have ceased to exist. Their destruction, however, was perhaps only postponed—unless he became fully persuaded that the new plan suggested by Alan's invitation to the Lancasters was a more feasible one.
He turned sharply from the desk to his visitor, who was still standing.
"Come for your second and final hundred—eh?"