"We can accomplish nothing without money."
"Money! What avail is money against a millionaire?"
"None, directly. You would be swamped instantly. But we must know more about Anson. He has servants. They can be made to talk. He has susceptible cooks and housemaids in Park Lane, and at whatever place he owns in the country. I am great with cooks and housemaids. There is a mystery, an unfathomable mystery, about his supply of diamonds. It must be probed——"
"No mystery at all," snarled Jocky Mason. "He found a meteor in a slum called Johnson's Mews. It was cram full of diamonds. I saw some of 'em."
"You saw them!"
His hearers allowed all other emotions to yield to the interest of this astounding statement.
"Yes. I don't say much. I act. You'll get no more out of me. I want none of your girls or property. I want Philip Anson's life, and I'll have it if I swing for it!"
"My dear Hunter, you are talking wildly. Have another drink?"
Grenier, cool as an icicle, saw unexpected vistas opening before him. He must be wary and collected. Here was the man who would pay, and the man who would dare all things.
Mason's truculent determination gave hope even to Langdon. He, too, gifted with a certain power of vicious reasoning, saw that this new ally might prove useful. But he was afraid of such bold utterances, and hoped to achieve his purposes without binding himself even tacitly to the commission of a crime, for Mason not only looked, but talked murder.