“Might be soda water,” Drew mused. The men were far more interesting than their drink. They were a strange lot. Three of them, dark complexioned gentlemen with short black moustaches, looked exactly alike. They were dressed alike and often all spoke at the same time. They laughed together in a sort of symphonic chorus. To the right of these was a large man with a huge red nose who roared when he laughed. A smaller and younger man, who might well have been his son, sat beside him. Across from these were two others who did not fall under Drew’s gaze.
The man at the end caught and held Drew’s attention. A small man, he said never a word, but all the time sat poised as if for a spring.
“Looks like a jack-in-the-box,” Drew told himself.
This little man’s eyes were roving from one to another of his companions. Once, these eyes, swinging in a wide circle, took Drew in. Cold steel-gray eyes that glittered, they sent a chill coursing down his spine. He felt in his pocket. Yes, the safety on his automatic was snapped off.
It was then that Drew’s keen mind registered an important fact. This little man with the fiery eyes was branded, or so it seemed; there was a double scar on the right side of his forehead. Together these scars, one red, the other purple, formed a Maltese Cross.
“Know him anywhere,” Drew told himself. “And yet, those scars might be faked, little touches of colored wax. It’s been done.”
Drew was expecting something to happen. The room was like a country place before a thunderstorm. One expects the roar of it long before the first peal comes rolling in.
When the thing did happen Drew was ready. It was nothing much at that, you might say. The little man half rose in his chair. As he did so something heavy slipped from his pocket and fell to the floor with a crash. It was a blue-barreled automatic.
Without so much as glancing about, the little man reached down to pick it up.
A look of pained surprise overspread his face as he realized the gun was not on the floor.