Edestone quietly finished the lighting of his cigar, and after he was thoroughly satisfied that this was perfectly done and it was going to draw to his entire satisfaction, he said:
“Well, now that you are to be my fellow-partner in crime, and Jones is our associate, I will tell you. Do you remember the summer way back in the 90’s that you and I spent in Switzerland mountain climbing?”
“Yes, perfectly,” said Lawrence, “but that was a long time ago. We were nothing but kids then.”
“Do you remember that you, kid-like, insisted upon going over a very flimsy-looking snow bridge, simply because the old guide told us that he had never seen that crevasse bridged before, and that the tradition down in Chamonix was that it had only been bridged once or twice in the memory of man?
“And do you remember,” went on Edestone, “that at first he refused to go, saying that if it broke after we got over, there was no possible way of our getting back?”
“Yes,” acknowledged Lawrence, “the old ‘chump,’ and I remember that we went over and got back all right, and those guides are talking about it yet.”
“Well, do you remember,” continued Edestone, “that when we scrambled up over the next rock ridge we looked into a regular bowl-shaped valley that had the appearance of a crater of an extinct volcano?”
“Yes,” said Lawrence.
“Well, ‘Specs’ is there in that valley, where perhaps no human being has ever been before. I sent him there for that reason. He has been there for the last two months and a half, unknown to anyone on the face of the earth and thoroughly protected from the storms that sweep over that portion of the French Alps.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Lawrence. “Is ‘Specs’ the skipper of that pretty little toy you were showing on the screen?”