A MYSTIC HAND
"It amounts," said J. J. Oppner, the lord of Wall Street, "to a panic. No man of money is safe. I ain't boilin' over with confidence in Scotland Yard, and I've got some Agency boys here in London with me."
"A panic, eh?" grunted Baron Hague, Teutonically. "So you vear this Bablon, eh?"
"A bit we do," drawled Oppner, "and then some. After that a whole lot, and we're well scared. He held me up at my Canadian mills for a pile; but I've got wise to him, and if he crowds me again he's a full-blown genius."
Mrs. Rohscheimer's dinner party murmured sympathetically.
"Of course you have heard, Baron," said the hostess, "that in his outrage here—here, in Park Lane!—he was assisted by no fewer than thirty accomplices?"
"Dirty aggomblices, eh? Dirty?"
"Dirty's the word!" growled Mr. Oppner.
"The wonder is," said Sir Richard Haredale, "that a rogue with so many assistants has not been betrayed."
To those present at the Rohscheimer board this subject, indeed, was one of quite extraordinary interest, in view of the fact that it was only a few days since the affair of the dramatic ball. Sixteen diners there were, and in order to appreciate the electric atmosphere which prevailed in the airy salon, let us survey the board. Reading from left to right, as in the case of society wedding groups, the diners were: