Brandes, the dull red still staining his heavy face, watched the flying landscape from the open window.
Stull leaned forward; Curfoot bent his lean, narrow head nearer; Neeland, staring fixedly at his open book, pricked up his ears.
“Now,” said Stull in a low voice, “I’ll tell you guys all Eddie and I know about this here business of 270 Captain Quint’s. It’s like this, Doc: Some big feller comes to Quint after they close him up—he won’t tell who—and puts up this here proposition: Quint is to open a elegant place in Paris on the Q. T. In fact, it’s ready now. There’ll be all the backing Quint needs. He’s to send over three men he can trust—three men who can shoot at a pinch! He picks us three and stakes us. Get me?”
Doc nodded.
Brandes said in his narrow-eyed, sleepy way:
“There was a time when they called us gunmen—Ben and me. But, so help me God, Doc, we never did any work like that ourselves. We never fired a shot to croak any living guy. Did we, Ben?”
“All right,” said Stull impatiently. And, to Curfoot: “Eddie and I know what we’re to do. If it’s on the cards that we shoot—well, then, we’ll shoot. The place is to be small, select, private, and first class. Doc, you act as capper. You deal, too. Eddie sets ’em up. I deal or spin. All right. We three guys attend to anything American that blows our way. Get that?”
Curfoot nodded.
“Then for the foreigners, there’s to be a guy called Karl Breslau.”
Neeland managed to repress a start, but the blood tingled in his cheeks, and he turned his head a trifle as though seeking better light on the open pages in his hands.