They went down-stairs and Big Slim led the way into a back room. It was the same in which Bat had seen the Swiss playing the flute on the night of Nora's unaccountable visit. But Bohlmier was not at all musically inclined at this time.
"No, no," he was saying to the thick-necked young man, "I will nothing to eat have. I am seek! Ach, how I am seek!"
Big Slim looked at Scanlon and grinned; then he whispered behind his hand:
"He was in on the same lot of treatment. The guy got him before he did me." Then to Bohlmier he added: "How's the sore throat?"
"Bad," replied the Swiss, in a strained way. "I a doctor haf had. He said I was lucky that I was not killed."
"Well, you wasn't," said Big Slim. "So forget that part of it."
The eyes of Bohlmier, with a cat-like glare in them, went to Bat; then he motioned to the burglar, who bent over his chair. The Swiss whispered croakingly in the other's ear. Bat could get a word here and there, but not sufficient to make any sense of what was being said. Once or twice he saw the eyes of the two men turn upon him, and their eager expression—deadly and cunning—made him uneasy.
"Sure," he heard Big Slim say. "That's right. I didn't miss that trick."
Then the whispering resumed. He caught fragments, such as: "Get him down there." "Gaffney's." "I'll fix him, all right."
"Who, me?" said Bat, to himself, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. "Do they really know I'm the party who put them on the hospital list? And are they framing it, right under my nose, to get even?"