An air fleet! What rot! What did he care about air fleets? One hundred thousand pounds! But if he presented himself at the Gleaner office as soon as it opened that morning, and explained, before the editor (curse him!) had had time to deal with his correspondence, that by an oversight (late night; the editor, as a man of the world, would understand) he had been thinking of a hundred and had written a hundred thousand, and also had written too many noughts after the amount of his subscription to the Gleaner fund, what then? The editor could not possibly object to returning him his cheque and accepting one for a thousand. A thousand was bad enough; but a hundred thousand!
He was growing stiff again.
Two o'clock!
Beneath his eyes lay the card which read:
"If you do so once, I may only warn you——"
A sudden burst of courage came to Julius Rohscheimer. Anything, he now determined, was preferable to this suspense.
He began to turn his head.
It was a ruse, he saw it all; a ruse to keep him there, silent, prisoned, whilst his cheque, his precious cheque, was placed in the hands of the Gleaner people.
Around he turned—and around. The corner of the wardrobe came within his field of vision. Still farther he moved. The doors, now, were visible.
And the gleaming barrel pointed truly at his head!