Minutes passed, and the chauffeur continued to wait and watch, scarcely stirring from his position—all of which convinced Patsy that his suspicions were correct, that the elderly man was holding a conference with some one and that the chauffeur was guarding against spies outside.
That he was right appeared in what occurred when the elderly man entered the house. He met no one in the hall, save an aged black cat, and he quickly entered a side room, in which a solitary man was waiting with an empty whisky glass on the table near which he was seated.
He was a tall man, close upon forty, very well clad, having dark eyes and complexion, but a rather weak cast of features. He was smooth-shaven. A combination false mustache and beard had been removed and was lying on the table. He looked up when the other entered, saying a bit irritably:
“Well, you’re here, Graff, at last. What kept you? I’ve been waiting half an hour.”
“But not idle!”
Graff spoke with a fiery gleam leaping up in his eyes. He was the same Professor Graff, chemist, with an office and a laboratory in the Waldmere Chambers, who had appeared in the corridor soon after the corpse of Gaston Todd was found, and who had blandly asserted, when questioned by Nick Carter, that he was not a physician and that his opinion regarding the fatality would be worthless.
There was no blandness in his low voice just then, however, nor any such quality.
“But not idle!” he repeated, with a fierce, sibilant hiss, pointing to the whisky glass and then dashing it to atoms in the fireplace. “You cut that out, Dorson, while doing business with me. Booze is a damned bad partner. It has brought you where you are and made you my tool. Cut it out—entirely! Obey me, Dorson, or—God help you!”
A resentful scowl appeared on Dorson’s face, which was not without signs of past dissipation, but the frown vanished quickly under the fiery rebuke of his companion. He pulled himself up, nevertheless, and said sullenly:
“I’m not so sure, Graff, that I’ll consent to be your tool.”