"I'm not quite the scoundrel you take it for granted that I am."
"No, you're another and a worse kind, you're a white-livered cur. You do the sneak game, when you think it's safe, for pennies; but when it comes to the man's game, for something worth having, you whine. I can see that I shall have to talk to you as I haven't done yet before you really do begin to find out where you are; but I haven't time to do it now. Where's he likely to have put those keys? Anyhow we ought to be able to get at his writing-table drawers without them; I shouldn't say that there was anything very special about their locks." He took something out of his pocket which he inserted in the keyhole of the top drawer. "It only wants a little--a little management. I thought so; that's done it; drawer No. 1." He drew the top drawer open, and instantly pushed it back again. "What's that?"
There was the sound of an electric bell.
"It's--it's somebody ringing."
"I know it's somebody ringing; I'm not deaf, am I? I don't need you to tell me that it's somebody ringing; but who's ringing? Who knows that we're here?"
"Perhaps it's the porter; or somebody connected with the Mansions."
The two men stood staring at each other; Nash white-faced. The bell was heard again.
"You go and see who's there; if it's the porter, or any one of that sort, you bluff him off. And mind, if you make a mess of things through funk, it'll be you who'll pay."
"I'm not afraid, Mr. Morgan; at least, not in the sense you mean."
Herbert Nash went to the front door; Morgan remained in the room, listening. Without was a young man; behind him was the porter.