Watkins interrupted him insolently. “If your lives ain’t worth five thousand apiece to you,” he said contemptuously, “there’s nothing doing. For my place here is worth fifteen thousand to me. And there’s all the risk too—I’m not charging you nothing for that.”
“We appreciate your generosity, Watkins,” Dr. Traherne stated. “Fifteen thousand be it!” The suspense must be cut! Time pressed hideously. Human nerves knew a limit. And after all—
“Now you’re talking,” Watkins remarked patronizingly.
With no more waste of words or of look, Basil Traherne bent over the table, and wrote and signed. He handed the I.O.U. to Watkins. Watkins scrutinized it, and threw it down on the writing-table. “That’s right, sir,” he said briskly, “but the Major must sign it too.”
Antony Crespin said something brief but terrible under his breath as he went to the writing table. But he signed it at once, not troubling to read, and threw down the pen. “There you are, damn you!” he told Watkins with a jerk of his head.
Watkins bowed.
“Now,” Traherne insisted, “get to work quick, and call up Amil-Serai—”
“Right you are, sir,” the man replied nonchalantly, and when he had pocketed the I.O.U. he strolled over to the wireless-room and began in a leisurely way to unlock the door.
“Isn’t there some special call you must send out to get Amil-Serai?” Crespin asked him.
“Oh, yes, sir, I know it,” Watkins said—his tone was respectful enough, his smile was not. He threw the folding-doors quite open, maddeningly deliberate in all he did, went in and took his seat at the wireless instrument, picked up the “receivers,” put it on his head, adjusted it, and began to tap-tap the wireless keys.