"Sit down and let me hear the—worst."
Lablache's voice rasped harshly as he delivered his mandate. Horrocks had just arrived at the money-lender's store after his visit to the half-breed camp. The police-officer looked weary. And the dejected expression on his face had drawn from his companion the hesitating superlative.
"Have you got anything to eat?" Horrocks retorted quickly, ignoring the other's commands. "I am famished. Had nothing since I set out from Stormy Cloud. I can't talk on an empty stomach."
Lablache struck a table bell sharply, and one of his clerks, all of whom were still working in the store, entered. The money-lender's clerks always worked early and late. It was part of the great man's creed to sweat his employees.
"Just go over to the saloon, Markham, and tell them to send supper for one—something substantial," he called out after the man, who hastened to obey with the customary precipitance of all who served the flinty financier.
The man disappeared in a twinkling and Lablache turned to his visitor again.
"They'll send it over at once. There's some whisky in that bottle," pointing to a small cabinet, through the glass door of which gleamed the white label of "special Glenlivet." "Help yourself. It'll buck you up."
Horrocks obeyed with alacrity, and the genial spirit considerably refreshed him. He then reseated himself opposite to his host, who had faced round from his desk.
"My news is not the—worst, as you seem to anticipate; although, perhaps, it might have been better," the officer began. "In fact, I am fairly well pleased with the result of my day's work."
"Which means, I take it, that you have discovered a clew."