She passed it to her neighbour, and in utter stillness it went the whole length of the table until Gideon pounced on it avidly and set it before the German on the table. With a grunt of satisfaction the big man thrust the revolver into his coat pocket and threw aside the white napery. Then an exclamation of anger escaped him, and he drew back so that Mr Campion’s offering lay exposed.
It was a breakfast egg, the very one, in fact, which the fatuous young man had been on the verge of broaching when the extraordinary interruptions had occurred.
The effect was instantaneous; the reaction from the silent tension of a moment before complete.
The entire table shook with laughter.
The German stood stiffly as before. There was still no expression of any sort upon his face, and his little eyes became dull and lifeless.
Gideon, on the other hand, betrayed his anger vividly. His eyes were narrowed with fury and his long thin lips were drawn back over his teeth like an angry dog’s. Gradually the laughter subsided. Benjamin Dawlish’s personality was one that could not be ignored for long. When at last there was perfect silence in the room he put his hand in his pocket and drew out his revolver again.
‘You laugh,’ he said heavily. ‘I do not laugh. And she, the little one,’ he tossed the gun in his hand with incredible delicacy for one who looked so clumsy, ‘she does not laugh either.’
The last words were uttered with such amazing ferocity that his hearers started involuntarily, and for an instant there appeared upon the heavy face, which hitherto had seemed immovable, an expression of such animalic violence that not one at that table looked him in the eyes.
A moment later his features had relapsed into their usual stolidity, and followed by Jesse Gideon he walked slowly from the room.
As the door closed behind them, the silence became painful, and at last a fitful, uneasy conversation broke out.