"However, I saw a chance to use the speeder in beguiling you to my ravine. The motorcycles would only have carried two, and there were to be three of you, including Bunce. Besides, the machines might have aroused your suspicions. So the speeder was used, and Pardo went over the hill with Bunce and helped him hide the speeder within an arrow flight of the Catskill railroad yards.
"Bunce took a risk. He knew it. I impressed upon him the fact that, if he did not carry out his programme with earnestness, you would make a prisoner of him and turn him over to the police. We knew Tsan Ti had written that you must keep the ruby about you, and leave it nowhere for security. I flattered myself you would bring the gem with you, concealed somewhere upon your person. But Pardo, wearing clothes which made him look vastly different, saw you leave the little box with the hotel clerk. Instantly Pardo ran ahead of you to the place where Bunce was waiting, and told him. The seeming failure of our plans threw Bunce into a panic—you can expect so little of Bunce in a pinch!—and he would have thrown over the whole matter, then and there, had not Pardo advised him. 'Take them out into the hills,' said Pardo, 'and leave them stranded there while you get away to the ravine and tell Grattan. Grattan will know what to do.' And Grattan did."
An ironical smile crossed the face of the strange man, and he paused a space. When he continued, his manner was again easy and vivacious.
"Ah, those section men! They helped gain time for me, and afforded Bunce his opportunity to get away from you. Bunce fled—you know how. He came to me and told me about the box, the box Motor Matt had left with the hotel clerk to be put in the safe. A fountain pen and a sheet of letter paper sufficed for the letter. I have seen your written name, Motor Matt, and when I have once seen a person's handwriting, I can copy it from memory after a lapse of one year or ten. Some say it is a gift.
"We had sharp work ahead of us, Bunce and I. We rolled out of the ravine on our motorcycles, gained the river bank below Catskill and signaled the Iris. Pardo came ashore in the tender, and he loaned us his motor-man for the work that claimed us. You know how he got the box, and we know what it contained—cotton wadding, but no ruby. Motor Matt, I could have shaken your hand and congratulated you—if you had been near and I had had time.
"A few rebuffs are what I need to bring out the best that is in me. Quick as a flash I thought of the motor-man's sick father in Buffalo, and Pardo's call at your hotel to get you to take the Iris to New York. Shall I call it an inspiration? I believe it amounted to that.
"Bunce and I, snugged away in this saloon, slept and waited for the issue of our scheming. Pardo came to report that you would be aboard the Iris at eight-thirty. I was almost sure of success, but not certain. You have a way, Motor Matt, of disappointing people like me, and I was not counting positively upon success until I had you in my hands.
"Well, here you are. I have only the kindliest feelings toward you, but you know what I want, and what I want, in this instance, I am going to have."
Grattan got up and stood beside the table, a superb figure of a man whose head just cleared the deck above.
"I have devoted time, and study, and faced dangers innumerable," he proceeded, betrayed into passionate vehemence, "to secure the Eye of Buddha! I have beaten down every obstacle, and secured the stone only to lose it; now it is mine again, mine. Motor Matt," and he stretched out his hand, "I will trouble you for the Eye of Buddha!"