"Yes. And then make our getaway."
No programme could have outlined more admirably Mr. Twist's own desires. The mere contemplation of it heartened him. He snatched his glass from the table and drained it with a gesture almost swash-buckling.
"Soapy will have doped the old man by this time, eh?"
"That's right."
"But suppose he hasn't been able to?" said Mr. Twist with a return of his old nervousness. "Suppose he hasn't had an opportunity?"
"You can always find an opportunity of doping people. You ought to know that."
The implied compliment pleased Chimp.
"That's right," he chuckled.
He nodded his head complacently. And immediately something which may have been an iron girder or possibly the ceiling and the upper parts of the house seemed to strike him on the base of the skull. He had been standing by the table, and now, crumpling at the knees, he slid gently down to the floor. Dolly, regarding him, recognized instantly what he had meant just now when he had spoken of John appearing like a total loss to his life-insurance company. The best you could have said of Alexander Twist at this moment was that he looked peaceful. She drew in her breath a little sharply, and then, being a woman at heart, took a cushion from the armchair and placed it beneath his head.
Only then did she go to the telephone and in a gentle voice ask the operator to connect her with Rudge Hall.