“No,” he said, smiling; “to me it looks like business.”
“You mean that the thief intends to come here—to bargain with me?”
“I should fancy so, from what he says.... And,” Staff added, crossing to his desk, “forewarned is forearmed.”
He bent over and pulled out the drawer containing his revolver. At the same moment he heard Alison catch her breath sharply, and a man’s voice replied to his platitude.
“Not always,” it said crisply. “Be good enough to leave that gun lay—just hold up your hands, where I can see them, and come away from that desk.”
Staff laughed shortly and swung smartly round, exposing empty hands. In the brief instant in which his back had been turned a man had let himself into the study from the hall. He stood now with his back to the door, covering Staff with an automatic pistol.
“Come away,” he said in a peremptory tone, emphasising his meaning with a flourish of the weapon. “Over here—by Miss Landis, if you please.”
Quietly Staff obeyed. He had knocked about the world long enough to recognise the tone of a man talking business with a gun. He placed himself beside Alison’s chair and waited, wondering.
Indeed, he was very much perplexed and disturbed. For the first time since Iff had won his confidence against his better judgment, his faith in the little man was being shaken. This high-handed intruder was so close a counterpart of Mr. Iff that one had to look twice to distinguish the difference, and then found the points of variance negligible—so much so that the fellow might well be Iff in different clothing and another manner. And Iff could easily have slipped out of the bedroom by its hall door. Only, to shift his clothes so quickly he would have to be a lightning-change artist of exceptional ability.
On the whole, Staff decided, this couldn’t be Iff. And yet ... and yet ...