"Haven't you the courage?"
"I don't—know."
"Yes, you have."
"Have I?" She laughed.
"Certainly. I'll go to the washroom now, and get into the cellar somehow, and make myself acquainted with it.... I suppose I ought to have a candle——"
She said:
"When I walk home alone at night I have a little electric torch with me. Shall I lend it to you?"
She opened the desk drawer, drew it out concealed under her handkerchief, and he managed to transfer it to his pocket. It clinked against the loaded automatic pistol; nobody noticed the sound.
But for a moment he thought the two men, Meier and Hoffman, had noticed it, because they both got up and came over directly toward him.
However, they merely wished to pay their reckoning with a hundred-franc note, and Warner moved aside while they crowded before the pretty cashier's desk, offering hasty pleasantries and ponderous gallantries, while she dimpled at them and made change.