He drank the coffee at intervals as he polished off a grilled bone, quite unsuspicious that he had fallen into the snare at last.
The effects of the drug became evident to the watchful eyes of the three conspirators before Vance began to realize there was anything the matter with him.
At length he experienced the insidious feeling of heaviness and torpor characteristic of a dose of chloral or knockout drops.
“Hadn’t we better—go?” he blurted out in a thick, hesitating tone to Dudley, who was talking to Carrington.
“What for? There’s no hurry. We’ll all go together presently,” was the reply of the dapper young man.
Vance looked helplessly at Miss Miller, his eyes, hitherto so alert and bright, now half closed and dull.
He half rose in his chair with a muttered exclamation, sank back, swayed a bit to and fro, and then utterly collapsed.
“He’s safe!” cried Carrington with sudden energy, rising to his feet. “Quick, Dudley; see if he has the papers on him, and secure them before the waiter turns up.”
In an instant Vance’s treacherous companion was searching him with a swiftness called forth by the urgency of the occasion.
But pocket after pocket failed to yield the desired results.