Ritzmann’s face showed that he was contemplating rebellion.
“I shall count ten, Mr. Ritzmann!”
The cheque was drawn up and signed. O’Hagan carefully folded and placed it in his pocket-book.
“Good day,” he said, and backed towards the door.
He opened it and stepped out into the passage. He had not closed it ere with bell and husky voice Ritzmann was summoning assistance.
O’Hagan handed me the pistol. He took out his cigarette-case and selected a cigarette. Before he had found his matchbox I was upstairs and inside Messrs. Harris and Harris’s office. It must have been at about the moment when I was stating my lack of a suitable parlourmaid, that three clerks, rushing out of the shop, intercepted the Captain, as, match in hand, he stood at the street-end of the passage.
They would have seized him; but O’Hagan’s eyes can quell.
“Your dirty hands off! The meaning of this outrage?”
Trembling, grey-faced, Mr. Ritzmann joined the three clerks. A fourth, who had been detailed to that duty, returned from an adjacent corner with a constable.
“Arrest that man! He has robbed me!”