Margate had hurriedly replaced his disguise, and he now hastened to the front door and opened it.
Peterson stood bowing on the steps, sedate and solemn, but with an unusual gleam in his eyes.
“Why are you here, Peterson?” Margate demanded, governing his voice with an effort. “What do you want?”
“Well, Mr. Garside, sir, it’s like this,” Peterson deliberately explained. “I want, Mr. Garside, sir, a hand in the game you are playing, and a bit of the stake.”
Other figures, with weapons drawn, were stealing nearer the door, hugging the wall of the house.
“If I’m not to have it, Mr. Garside, sir—I want you, instead!”
Peterson rang out the last with a voice that Margate remembered only too well, the voice of the man who had sent a bullet at his head long months before. And Peterson’s revolver leaped from his pocket and covered the staggering crook.
“Heavens above!” Margate gasped, while reeling. “Chick Carter!”
Then the fiend in him arose supreme, or in his brain a maddening vision of the electric chair. With a fierce shriek, regardless of the weapon, he leaped at Chick Carter’s throat.
Chick met him halfway and tried to grapple him and avoid shooting him, but the weapon was discharged almost on the instant.