Hatch knew that humour in Dick. It always preceded the psychological moment when he wanted to climb down someone's throat and open an umbrella. The tone was calm, the words clearly enunciated, and the face was white—whiter than it had been before.
"I shouldn't like to——" Mr. Randolph began.
"You may say what you want to before Mr. Hatch, or not at all, as you please," Dick went on evenly.
Mr. Randolph cleared his throat twice and waved his hands with an expression of resignation.
"Very well," he replied. "I have come to request the return of my gold plate."
Hatch leaned forward in his chair, gripping its arms fiercely. This was a question bearing broadly on a subject that he wanted to mention, but he didn't know how. Mr. Randolph apparently found it easy enough.
"What gold plate?" asked Dick steadily.
"The eleven pieces that you, in the garb of a Burglar, took from my house last Thursday evening," said Mr. Randolph. He was quite calm.
Dick took a sudden step forward, then straightened up with flushed face. His left hand closed with a snap and the nails bit into the flesh; the fingers of the helpless right hand worked nervously. In a minute now Hatch could see him climbing all over Mr. Randolph.
But again Dick gained control of himself. It was a sort of recognition of the fact that Mr. Randolph was fifty years old; Hatch knew it; Mr. Randolph's knowledge on the subject didn't appear. Suddenly Dick laughed.