“Very good,” rapped Kerry. “Well, if you think we have given them time to hide the ‘wheel’ we’ll go in. Oh, don’t explain. I’m not worrying about sticklebacks tonight. I’m out for salmon.”
He opened a door on the left of the landing and entered a large room which offered evidence of having been hastily evacuated by a considerable company. A red and white figured cloth of a type much used in Continental cafés had been spread upon a long table, and three foreigners, two men and an elderly woman, were bending over a row of dominoes set upon one corner of the table. Apparently the men were playing and the woman was watching. But there was a dense cloud of cigar smoke in the room, and mingled with its pungency were sweeter scents. A number of empty champagne bottles stood upon a sideboard and an elegant silk theatre-bag lay on a chair.
“H’m,” said Kerry, glaring fiercely from the bottles to the players, who covertly were watching him. “How you two smarts can tell a domino from a door-knocker after cracking a dozen magnums gets me guessing.”
He took up the scented bag and gravely handed it to the old woman.
“You have mislaid your bag, madam,” he said. “But, fortunately, I noticed it as I came in.”
He turned the glance of his fierce eyes upon the man who had met him on the landing, and who had followed him into the room.
“Third floor, von Hindenburg,” he rapped. “Don’t argue. Lead the way.”
For one dangerous moment the man’s brow lowered and his heavy face grew blackly menacing. He exchanged a swift look with his friends seated at the disguised roulette table. Kerry’s jaw muscles protruded enormously.
“Give me another answer like that,” he said in a tone of cold ferocity, “and I’ll kick you from here to Paradise.”
“No offense—no offense,” muttered the man, quailing before the savagery of the formidable Chief Inspector. “You come this way, please. Some ladies call upon me this evening, and I do not want to frighten them.”