If he had shot Ahlberg no greater surprise could have been created. Hibbs jumped up, dashing the cards and money in a heap on the floor, and nearly upsetting the table. One of his companions grabbed the lamp to save it.
Ahlberg turned a deathly color, and made some inarticulate effort to be heard, and tried to wrest himself from Pembroke’s grasp. But it was in vain. Pembroke shook him slightly, but never relaxed his hold.
“The king of spades, I say.”
Without a word Ahlberg reached down, and from some unknown depths produced the card. He was no coward, but he was overmastered physically and mentally. He knew in an instant that Pembroke had seen it all, and there was no shadow of escape for him.
Pembroke let go of Ahlberg’s collar, and, taking out a white handkerchief, wiped his hands carefully. Ahlberg had sunk back, panting, in a chair. The grip of a hand like Pembroke’s in the neighborhood of the wind-pipe is calculated to shorten the breath.
Hibbs looked dazed, from one to the other, and then to the floor, where the cards had fallen. The one damning card lay on the table.
“I saw it twice before this, in the glass,” said Pembroke to Hibbs. “Each time I tried to catch him, but he did it so well I couldn’t. But the last time it was perfectly plain,—you see. I could see under the table in the glass. You had better pick up your money, Hibbs.”
At this, Ahlberg spoke up.
“All of it is Monsieur Hibbs’,” he said with elaborate politeness, recovering his breath a little, “except two fifty-dollar notes, which are mine.”
Pembroke picked out the two fifty-dollar notes and dashed them in Ahlberg’s face, who very cleverly caught them and put them in his pocket.