“Doubtless; but you see there are certain cases which have to be settled in the family. You’ll know more of this later.”
“Next time, look out,” said O’Leary grimly.
“There’ll be no next time,” said Doctor Fortier, with a shrug of his shoulders. “You may not believe me, but it is so. You can have that satisfaction. You can tell that to my precious brother-in-law.”
With which he went off surlily enough under all his assumption of indifference. The knowledge of Fortier’s relationship to Dangerfield was but small surprise to King O’Leary. In his own mind he had long arrived at a shrewd suspicion of the crisis through which his neighbor was passing. He called up Sassafras and put him on watch for any new attempt, improbable though it might be. Upstairs he held a consultation with Inga, who slipped into the hall for a brief moment, at the end of which it was decided to secure the aid of Flick’s two friends in the pugilistic profession.
“The fellow claimed to be his brother-in-law,” said O’Leary. “Do you think that’s true?”
She nodded.
“I’m quite sure.”
“Then that was his wife who was here, and she’s at the bottom of it all,” he said thoughtfully. “But why should they try to carry him off like this? What the deuce was their object? Have you any idea?”
He had been speaking his thoughts aloud. Now, as he looked at her, each saw in the other’s eyes that the same supposition dominated them.