Morphew gave himself time to assimilate this ill-omened information, bending over the gaudy trinket in his hands and making meticulous choice of a cigar. He gnawed off its end, broadcasted the waste, put the case away, struck a match, and through a screen of smoke and flame looked back to Lanyard.
"How'd you manage that?"
"But surely one who couldn't—so simple a matter!—is not one to have been honoured with the handsome offer you made me last night."
"I've put you a question," Morphew testily prompted; "I want to know how you managed to put it over on Mally. Afraid to answer?"
"All in good time. For the present, I have the whim to point out what dismal stupidity you have displayed in this affair, to the end that you may spare yourself further discomfiture by foregoing any injudicious schemes of vengeance which may be brewing behind that broad, impassive brow."
"You swing a mean tongue in English," Morphew observed—"for a foreigner." He cast about for a chair sturdy enough to sustain the bulk of him, and with an air of resignation, his first voluntary confession of feeling, sat down. "Go on, get it all off your chest; I don't mind listening."
"Monsieur is too amiable. One can only prove one's appreciation by endeavouring to be brief . . ."
"Take your time. I got plenty."
"Regard, then, my good Morphew, that last night, in this room, I was drugged."
"Hootch?" Morphew sagely queried, and receiving a nod commented: "There's a lot of wicked stuff being served nowadays."