Without answering, but nodding a good day to the broker, Matt stepped into the outer room.
As he passed through this other office, he saw Prebbles on a high stool, humped over a ledger. The clerk's eye shade and little bald head, and his thin, crooked body, gave him the grotesque appearance of a frog, roosting on a stone, and getting ready to jump.
Matt passed on into the hall. Before he could descend the stairs he heard a hissing sound behind him. Turning, he saw the clerk standing in the open door, touching his lips with a finger in token of silence.
Matt paused with his hand on the stair rail, and the clerk came gliding toward him.
"Don't have anythin' to do with him," said Prebbles, in a tremulous whisper; "he's a robber."
"Who's a robber?" returned Matt.
"Murgatroyd. He's a skinflint and hasn't any more heart than a stone. He's a robber, I tell you; and, anyhow, if you try to run that machine you'll get killed. Traquair got killed, and he invented it, and knew more about it than you can ever learn. If——"
A buzzer began to sound its call in the outer office. Prebbles whirled and shuffled away. Pausing at the door, he turned to repeat, in a stage whisper:
"Leave him alone, I tell you. He's a robber, and you'll get killed."
Then Prebbles vanished, and Matt went thoughtfully down the stairs.