For a few moments he prowled around; a glass tinkled against a decanter. When he returned to the shadow-shape seated motionless by the casement window he carried only one glass.
"Don't you?" inquired Sixty-seven. "And you a Scot!"
"I'm a Yankee; and I'm through."
"With the stuff?"
"Absolutely."
"Oh, very well. But a Yankee laird—tiens c'est assez drole!" He smacked his lips over the smoky draught, set the half-empty glass on the deep sill. Then he began breezily:
"Well, Seventy-six, what's all this I hear about your misfortunes?"
"What do you hear?" inquired McKay guilelessly.
The other man laughed.
"I hear that you and Seventy-seven have entered the Service; that you are detailed to Switzerland and for a certain object unknown to myself; that your transport was torpedoed a week ago off the Head of Strathlone, that you wired London from this house of yours called Isla, and that you and Seventy-seven went to London last week to replenish the wardrobe you had lost."