“No,” Mary answered.
In the same instant, while still her eyes were on the vase, it fell in a cascade of shivered glass to the table and floor. She had heard no sound, she saw no smoke. Perhaps, there had been a faintest clicking noise. She was not sure. She stared dumfounded for a few seconds, then turned her bewildered face toward Garson, who was grinning in high enjoyment.
“I would'nt have believed it possible,” she declared, vastly impressed.
“Neat little thing, ain't it?” the man asked, exultantly.
“Where did you get it?” Mary asked.
“In Boston, last week. And between you and me, Mary, it's the only model, and it sure is a corker for crime.”
The sinister association of ideas made Mary shudder, but she said no more. She would have shuddered again, if she could have guessed the vital part that pistol was destined to play. But she had no thought of any actual peril to come from it. She might have thought otherwise, could she have known of the meeting that night in the back room of Blinkey's, where English Eddie and Garson sat with their heads close together over a table.
“A chance like this,” Griggs was saying, “a chance that will make a fortune for all of us.”
“It sounds good,” Garson admitted, wistfully.
“It is good,” the other declared with an oath. “Why, if this goes through, we're set up for life. We can quit, all of us.”