His eyes were feverish. His features worked.
"You are wrong, Isaac Jacobsen!" rapped Pepys, and snatched the packet in a flash. "It has!"
The man on the chair lurched. Every speck of colour fled from his naturally florid face, leaving it a dull, neutral grey. He threw out one hand to steady himself, and with the other plunged to his hip.
"Both up!" ordered Pepys crisply.
And Mr. Bernard Megger found himself looking down a revolver barrel that pointed accurately between his twitching eyebrows, nor wavered one hair's breadth!
Unsteadily he raised his arms—staring, with dilated pupils, at this master of consummate craft.
"It is by such acts of fatuity as your careful preservation of these proofs of identity," came in ironic tones, "that all rogues are bowled out, Jacobsen! I will admit that you had them well hidden. It was good of you to find them. I had despaired of doing so myself!" With that the speaker backed towards the open door.
"Inspector Pepys!" gasped Bernard Megger, swallowing between the words, "I shall remember you!"
"You will be wasting grey matter!" replied the man addressed, and was gone.
Megger, dropping heavily into the chair, saw that the departing visitor had thrown a slip of pasteboard upon the carpet.