The sandy-haired man raised his head, and spoke hesitatingly. “Well, you see, Dandy, it’s a little matter the Count mentioned last week—but he didn’t say anything about you. He’s told off the men for it—and it’s a matter of a few diamonds, and only women to deal with. But the Count’s particular about one of the women—a young one—coming by no hurt. After all, it’s down your way, and he must have meant you to know what was going on. It’s for Friday, as soon after midnight as may be. There’s Briggs here, and myself, and Cripps, in case of accidents. He wrote the address, and a rough plan, so that we might find it without making enquiries. Here you are.” He tossed across the table a folded piece of paper as he spoke.
Philip’s hand had closed on the paper, and he was in the very act of opening it, when a confused sound of scuffling and angry voices came from outside the door. Looking round quickly, with the others, he saw the Shady ’un dart in—breathless and panting—and make a hasty attempt to close it; indeed, he got his back planted against it, while some one outside was evidently striving hard to burst it open, and pointed with a shaking hand at Philip Chater.
“Treachery—by God!” he gasped. “He’s put the splits on us!”
The man’s appearance, no less than his voice, and the words he had uttered, were sufficient to cause alarm. He was battered and bruised from his two encounters with the Captain, and with the woman into whose shop he had been so unceremoniously thrust, while his clothing—such as it was—had been almost torn from him, by his struggle with the unknown person against whom he still frantically held the door. At the very moment he spoke, this unknown one, proving too much for him, burst into the room, sweeping the Shady ’un aside, and revealed himself as Captain Peter Quist, without a hat, and in a great state of perspiration, disorder, and excitement.
Finding himself unexpectedly in the presence of half-a-dozen men—one of whom was Philip Chater—in addition to his late assailant, the Captain stopped, and looked round in some astonishment. At the same time, the Shady ’un, in an agony of spite and fear, backed away from him, and continued to gasp out his indictment.
“Seed ’em together all night, I ’ave. Dandy sent ’im ’ere, a spy in’ out fer the Count—an’ I——”
Philip Chater did not care to risk waiting to give any explanation to that company. In point of fact, he feared the honest Captain more than any man there; for he dreaded lest he should blurt out his knowledge of a certain Philip Crowdy, who was done with, and left behind in the past. Therefore, edging quickly near to the Captain, while he still kept his eyes on the other men, who had risen to their feet, he whispered quickly—
“Make a bolt for it!”
There hung from the ceiling, over the table, a single gas jet, with a naked light; Philip, with a quick movement, snatched the ragged hat from the head of the Shady ’un, who stood at his elbow, and dashed it straight at the light; the room was in darkness in a moment. He heard the men falling about, and stumbling over the chairs, as he darted through the doorway, and plunged down the stairs, with the Captain almost in his arms—for that gentleman had waited for him. The men were actually on the stairs, when the two fugitives darted through the bar, and into the street.
Rightly guessing that no attempt would be made to pursue them in the open street, Philip and his companion, after doubling round one or two corners, came to a halt, and sat down on some steps outside a church, to review their position.